


Esther on Ice

by ere_the_sun_rises



Series: Esther on Ice [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Asexual Character, Developing Relationship, Dysfunctional Family, Families of Choice, First Kiss, Ice Skating, Loneliness, Mental Health Issues, Other, POV Jewish Character, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Snark, Tags updated with chapters, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2018-12-08 14:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 94,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11648232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ere_the_sun_rises/pseuds/ere_the_sun_rises
Summary: Yuuri, you may not realize this, but many others besides me got their 'L words' from you.Three years ago, Esther Markowitz walked away from skating in disgrace. When a replication of a Viktor Nikiforov routine surfaces via a viral video, it leads her to realize she may not be as over it as she thought.





	1. Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/) // [esther on ice tag](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/tagged/esther%20on%20ice/)
> 
> please come talk to me about my skating babies

“Oh, come on, you little shit!” Esther tapped aggressively at her computer screen. The feed didn’t budge, save for that infuriating grey pinwheel. She groaned, digging the heels of her hands into tired eyes. The grey foredawn light was beginning to stream through her open window—it was that hour where all the birds decided to squawk as loud as they could, and she considered sticking her head out and telling them to can it.

The video juddered, and then it was going. “Yes!” she gasped, throwing herself down onto her stomach, glued to the screen.

The rink was lit in blue. Her breath caught in her chest as the sound of a crowd, tinny as her laptop’s feeble speakers conveyed it, filled her room. “ _The first, and World Figure Skating champion for 2016, from Russia, Viktor Nikiforov!_ ”

He was as beautiful as he had ever been. Under the spotlight that followed him out onto the rink, he was touched with something like the first thaw of the frost; pale, cold, and ephemeral. _He looks miserable,_ Esther realized, with the clarity only a kindred spirit can receive. He greeted his adoring public with a soft, melancholy smile. Was this something brought on by age? She heard more of what her parents said than they thought, and they’d discussed the probability of his retirement more than once over the past few years—was he finally doing it?

At last, Viktor turned, heading to the podium and taking his place on the top block, raising another arm in acknowledgment to the cheers that erupted as he did so. Esther grabbed one of her pillows, hugging it to her chest and resting her chin there as she settled in to wait.

“ _The second, and winner of the silver medal, from Switzerland, Christophe Giacometti!_ ” No audience could have rivaled the amount of noise made for Viktor, but the applause for Christophe came close. He emerged with the smooth, charismatic smile that had won hearts all over the world, blowing kisses and taking elegant bows. It went on for what felt like hours: finally, he turned and joined Viktor on the podium, shaking his hand before stepping up to his right.

Esther squeezed her pillow tighter, lifting her head and waiting with bated breath. “ _The third, and winner of the bronze medal, from Kazakhstan, Otabek Altin!_ ”

She couldn’t hear the audience or the commentary, not through the way her blood was suddenly pounding in her ears. He was there, taking his bow before the world, turning to join his competitors and stand on the podium beside a living legend.

“ _Beka_ ,” she whispered, through a throat that felt suddenly tight. It was with something like pride mingled with grief that she watched the ISU official string the bronze around his neck, watched him accept his bouquet with an inclined head and shake hands with the judges. He stood still and quiet as the flags unfurled behind them, and the Russian anthem began to play. Through it all, her eyes never left him, not when they stood together on the podium for their pictures, not when they took their victory lap around the edge of the rink; not until they all stopped before the camera and stood close, with hands on shoulders and victory-high smiles on their faces, did she close out the feed at last, power down her computer, and close the lid.

Esther sat in silence, her elation already a distant memory. She thought briefly of crawling back under the covers and sleeping the day away, but the sun was rising already, and for as much as she was exhausted, she was restless; it drove her to her feet, sent her to pace her floor and linger in front of her closet, chewing her cuticles, shifting from one foot to another like a reluctant thief.

With a sharp exhalation, she opened the door. In the corner of the upper shelf, there sat an unassuming cardboard box—it was just low enough that Esther could reach it standing on her toes, and so she pulled it down, carried it to her bed and set it there. The mattress dipped beneath her as she sat next to it, opening the flaps and reaching slowly inside.

Her fingers closed around the closest thing to the top: a smooth, dark wood frame, slippery with dust. Instinctively, she wiped around the edges before she blew on the glass, settling for the edge of her sheet to clean it off. Her view now unobstructed, Esther went still, staring intently at the olive branch engraved into the surface of the medal—it glinted darkly, reflecting the shadows in her room, but she knew that if she were to turn the lights on, it would glow gold.

Shaking her head, she returned the case to its fellows, took the box back to its place on the shelf, and closed the door firmly behind it. Dwelling on the past had no use.

She went to the shower, scrubbing firmly at her scalp to stave off its flaking, and picked a new t-shirt and pair of shorts. With her parents in Tokyo, the house was blessedly silent—she had that for today, at least. She opened the cabinet, retrieved her cereal, had a bowl, put her dishes in the dishwasher when she was done, and headed back upstairs.

That, apparently, was how long it took the entire world to implode.

It was the fourth thing trending on Twitter—typically, she didn’t pay attention to that, but something drew her eye and found her staring at _#StayCloseToMe_.

It prickled at her brain. She frowned. _Wasn’t that the name of Viktor’s program?_ Viktor _was_ a legend, that much was true, but she had never known figure skating to break the headlines. Curiosity had her clicking on the tag, scanning for the source of the excitement.

Copious retweeting had taken place, but it was thankfully not difficult to locate the original post. _Katsuki Yuuri tried to skate Viktor’s FS program Stay Close to Me_ was helpfully supplied in English; her Japanese was a little rusty.

“Katsuki Yuuri,” Esther murmured, clicking the YouTube link. _Where have I heard that before?_

The picture queued up: an empty ice rink, save the man out in the middle—he assumed a pose she had seen just hours before, and launched into the same routine.

Except…it wasn’t the same. Not quite. The way Katsuki Yuuri skated was…heartfelt. Like his plea to _stay close to me_ was hopeful, looking to his future, rather than a regret looking back. He drew her in, but before long, her brow was crinkling in the middle. _Who is this guy? He’s way too good to be nobody._ She hit the pause, opened another tab, tapped into the search bar: _Katsuki Yuuri._

The first thing to pop up was a Wikipedia page. _Yuuri Katsuki (_ _勝生_ _勇利, Katsuki Yūri, born 29 November 1992, is a Japanese figure skater who competes in the men’s singles discipline._ So he _was_ a pro, she had been right about that much—though it didn’t look like he had that much to show for it, scrolling through his Career section. _That’s odd, he looked really good out there—_ not that she’d ever been able to understand scoring on men’s singles, with all the quad politics underpinning everything…

“Aha!” she stopped near the bottom of the page. _Katsuki qualified for the Grand Prix final for the first time in the 2015-2016 season. He finished in sixth place._ A brief scan further told of his loss at the Japanese nationals just a few months prior—but Esther remembered him now. Her parents had been at the Grand Prix final last year, not for anyone in men’s singles, but it hadn’t stopped them from watching and gossiping about everything they saw, including the newbie from Japan who blew it…

His Personal Life section was nearly empty, except to inform that he was born in Hasetsu, Saga Prefecture, Japan, and that he attended the University of Detroit for the past five years, graduating only recently.

Esther went back to the first tab, resuming play on the video. She watched with her breath caught, her heart racing, a feeling that she’d nearly forgotten burning through her veins. She knew it for what it was, as the routine came to a close—she wanted to _skate_.

She sat back, letting out a long, shaking breath. It was a feeling that had come to her now and again, over the years—she had ignored it until now, perhaps because she had known all along what it really was.

Esther sat still and waited for it to go away. She closed her eyes, waited for the sudden rush of life to abandon her, but it remained. She was infuriatingly, brilliantly alive.

In a flash, she was on her feet—her head spun, it was so fast—tugging off her pajamas and abandoning them for workout gear shoved so far back in her dresser, she wasn’t sure she even had it anymore. She zipped on a windbreaker, shoved the essentials into the pockets, and took the stairs down two at a time to race out the door. She patted down her front, _phone keys wallet,_ barely stopping to lock the door before she was off.

She paused just a second at the gate. _Where do I go?_ It had been long enough that she had to think before, _right, Boylston and Dartmouth,_ and took off like a shot.

She was verging on manic as the she arrived at the bus stop to wait, bouncing from one foot to another. After what felt like an eternity of restless, low buzzing that prevented any other thoughts from taking root, the number nine arrived at last to whisk her away.

The hour was sufficiently early for her to get a seat, and she settled in for the long haul. Her head had quieted down somewhat, enough to allow some contemplation as she stared out the window. _It’s just like we used to do,_ was what she thought most often. If there was any justice in the world, Otabek would be sound asleep. _If he’s doing what I would do,_ she corrected herself, smiling as she recalled his incongruous penchant for mischief. It had been his idea, after all, to sneak out after dark, beyond the watchful eyes of her parents, and break their diets on Italian pastries.

Typically, thinking of their old antics was more than enough to send her into a low mood for at least an hour, but today, on the bus, bound for the rink, she was oddly untouchable. Esther had learned long ago not to look gift highs in the mouth.

She hopped off at Farragut and Second, darted across the street, and glanced over the bay. Slowly, she turned to the rink, seized with a sudden trepidation that threatened to turn her around and send her all the way back. She closed her eyes and balled her fists, pressing nails into palms to stave off the sudden wave of panic. _Too late to turn back now, Esther._ Opening her eyes, she went to the door and pushed.

It didn’t budge.

“Huh?” She pushed again, but it was stuck fast—and only then did she see the hours, printed clearly on the door: _TUESDAY 9AM – 10PM._ “Oh.” She checked her phone: _8:47_.

She had time: and so, she went back toward the water, hiked one foot up onto the wall, and stretched. She ran through all the old motions, still familiar to her as the day she had abandoned them, and when she was done it was almost five after—she jogged back around, and this time, the door opened for her.

“Morning,” the man behind the counter greeted her.

“Hey,” Esther braced her elbows on the top. “It’s just me. And I’ll need a skate rental. I’m a size eight, I think. Shoes.”

He went to the racks, plucking an appropriate pair and passing them to her. “Let me know if you need something different.”

Esther unlaced her sneakers and handed them over. “How much do I owe you?”

Fees paid, she made her way over to one of the benches. “Ice maintenance is nearly done; you can go on once they’re off.”

“All right.” She sat and laced up the skates—she’d lucked out and gotten the right size on her first try, and all that was left to do was wait for it to be time.

Finally, the rink was cleared, clean and unmarked, fresh as a brand-new snowfall. She hobbled out on her blades, feeling a bit like a newborn deer, and held onto the edge of the wall as she stared out onto the ice.

 _First step._ She put a blade to the ice, and pushed…

…and nearly fell flat on her ass. There was a brief moment of panic, where she couldn’t remember anything, and then it clicked. Her brain shut off and her body took over: she caught herself, and started gliding. Her ears were full of the slice of her skates; the edge of the rink wheeled before her eyes. She realized that she’d slid into compulsory figure eights, her muscles drawing out the motion from a long-forgotten place. Esther did a few more, and then took a longer line out, dared to kick off and hop a single toe loop. She turned back, skated the other way, jumped again—double toe loop. Grinning ear to ear, she raced for the center of the rink, bent her knee, and pushed off—

She had to put her hand down, but she stayed on her feet, and she had gone around three and a half turns—she was beaming, in a different world altogether as she hopped into a butterfly spin, rose up for a basic camel—she pushed off again; flying sit spin, scratch, and at last, she allowed herself to come to a halt, suddenly aware of how warm her cheeks had grown, how she was puffing from the exertion.

There was a figure behind the wall—Esther realized that the man behind the counter had come to watch her. She skated closer, enough to see the puzzled expression on his face. “Who are you?” was what he settled on, huffing an incredulous laugh. “I don’t get many people out there pulling those kinds of moves.”

Esther shrugged, and probably hesitated too long before she replied. “I used to skate competitively. It was a long time ago.”

“Oh. Well, that explains it,” he said, amicably. Internally, Esther breathed a sigh of relief—the conversation that her being recognized would bring on was one she’d prefer to avoid, preferably to the grave. “You looked good out there, though. I guess you still practice, then, keep everything sharp?”

Esther bit down on the honest reply, forcing a smile. “Uh—yeah, I guess it’s just ingrained.” _Enough to survive three years off the ice, apparently._

“You ever think about going back?”

He might as well have brought the sky down. Everything else was drowned out, like she was underwater and it was all above the surface. _Going back?_ For a moment, the ice was lit in blue, she could hear the music, the sound of a far-off crowd. She blinked, hard, and she was back in the ice rink, staring blankly at the greying skate rental man making small talk.

“I…” _I do now._

“Eh, don’t listen to me. I don’t know the first thing about competitive skating. You know what you could do? Teach kids, they’d love to learn stuff like that. You might even be able to do it here.”

In her own mind, Esther was already miles away. “I…have to go, actually.”

The man paused, giving her another bewildered look. “You just got here.”

“There’s things I’ve got to do,” she explained.

She traded her skates back, shoved her feet back into her shoes, and ran out the door with her thanks thrown over her shoulder. Belatedly, she wondered if she would ever see that man again, and whether the rink would know whom to give a letter addressed to _grey-haired fellow working Tuesday morning._

She was home within the hour. Esther raced through her second shower of the day and collapsed across her bed, hair caught up in a towel. She’d had the entire ride back to formulate her plan, and she powered up her laptop, pulling her phone close and beginning the search for phone numbers.

“ _What? You’ve got to be kidding me. I would have to be completely insane to seriously consider this._ ”

“ _This is a joke, right?_ ”

“ _I’m going to have to say no._ ”

“ _Absolutely not._ ”

“ _I’m sorry, but I can’t do this._ ”

“I know I’m a long shot. Everyone is going to look at me and see me screwing up, but…I love skating. I’ve ignored that for too long, and if I gave up now, without at least trying to find some kind of redemption…I’d never forgive myself.”

“ _I understand. And I admire your courage, but unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate this coming season—and besides that, finding second chances in this world, especially after so long…_ ”

“Yes,” Esther said, quickly, quietly, wanting nothing more than to get off the line before her voice betrayed her. “Thank you anyway, Mr. Cialdini, _grazie tante_.” She hung up, bit her lip, and wiped at the tears that started to fall. _Stupid,_ all of it had been stupid, impulsive, everything she never let herself be, and for good reason—she let her heart run away with her once, and something like this happened. _You have a future planned, you’re going to Bowdoin, you’re getting your degree, and then…_

And then she’d waste away, regretting everything. Sighing, she picked up the list of scratched-out names. There had to be someone out there. Maybe there was some newbie coach, unafraid of the baggage carried by her name. Someone who wasn’t thinking first of their image, or writing her off as an utter failure…

She wracked her brains, but came up with nothing. Sighing, she flopped onto her back, and resolved not to give up. _I’m going to figure this out if it kills me,_ she vowed, silently, and nodded to herself. Reaching for her phone, she looked at the new messages: one from her parents, informing her of their imminent arrival late that night. She sent back a perfunctory thumbs-up emoji, backing out and tapping her next most recent conversation.

Her wait for a reply, this time, was longer. She glanced at the clock, but it wasn’t time for a class change yet.

__

Jay was the only real friend Esther had made during her year and a half in public high school—Esther had completed her credits by the first semester of senior year, and rather than hang around for another four months, she’d elected to graduate early. So far, they’d stayed in touch, though college was another looming threat to their commitment to each other.

 

Esther dropped her phone back on the bedspread. There _was_ a solution—her intuition told her as much—she would just have to be patient.

She hated being patient.

Her stomach chose that moment to start talking to her. “All right,” she muttered, getting up and heading down for the kitchen.

There was a coach out there, somewhere, who would be willing to take on Esther Markowitz and turn a failure into a success. It’d make, at the least, for a decent movie adaptation on ABC Family.

 

* * *

 

The front door opened at eleven PM. Luggage was rolled in, and before long, Esther could hear the voices of her parents in the hall. Oddly enough, the customary tapping on her door didn’t begin, leading her to venture out and peer off the landing.

Her mother and father were standing at the island counter, travel-rumpled and probably smelling about the same. There was a bottle on the counter, and as she watched, her father popped the cork and poured two flutes of champagne. Slowly, she pushed off the railing and came down the stairs, curiosity overwhelming her more avoidant tendencies.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Well, hello to you too!” her mother chirped, oddly chipper for someone who had a thirteen-hour flight and a mountain of jet lag, probably. “We’re celebrating.”

“Do you want any?” her father had never adopted several facets of American life, the drinking age being one of them.

Esther shook her head. “What for? None of your skaters medaled.” She had checked the results on a whim, earlier that afternoon.

They exchanged a glance. Her mother shrugged. “The season is over. Just because.”

“Uh-huh.” Esther went to the fridge for a glass of water.

“No, there _is_ something,” her father said.

“Yes!” Her mother waited for Esther to turn to her. She raised an expectant eyebrow. Her mother pointed at her, drawing little circles in the air. “Your friend Beka got a bronze medal,” she imparted, as if it were big news.

Esther blinked. “Did he now,” she said, turning back to the Brita dispenser. She could practically hear them shrugging behind her back. For all her parents knew, she had stopped following anything related to the skating world three years ago. Esther let them; in some ways, she preferred it. She closed the fridge, sipping her water and facing them with narrowed eyes. “You’re drinking champagne to celebrate Otabek?”

“Of course,” her father nodded. “It wasn’t too long ago that we were teaching him ourselves, and now he’s on his way to the top.”

“So what?” she frowned. “Otabek’s not your student anymore. He hasn’t been for three years. Thinking you had anything to do with him winning is just vanity.” She didn’t wait around for a reply, instead taking her water and heading back upstairs.

 

* * *

 

Esther’s alarm rang at 6 AM: she was wide awake, tossing the covers back, already stripping out of the t-shirt she slept in and going for the clothes she’d tossed over the back of her chair last night. She tiptoed down the stairs, chugged a glass of orange juice and a protein bar, and trotted out the door.

She took an old route, one that took her down through Southie and past Boston University on her way back. She came back through the door a half hour later, her panting a testament to how out of practice she was.

Her parents were up by then, looking tired but awake. “Look at you,” her father greeted her, with some surprise. “You haven’t gone for a run in a while.”

“I felt like it,” she replied, going for the water. She knocked back a glass, poured another and settled on the floor with it to stretch.

Her mother regarded her with that detached, calculating interest. “Are you trying to get back in shape?”

“I told you, I felt like it.”

“Hm.” Why she insisted on pretenses, even though the three of them all knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades that she accepted the explanation, Esther would never know.

The next day, Esther went back to the rink; she skated her compulsory figure eights, reacquainted herself with all of her old warmups, and started honing her techniques again. The day after, she headed to the gym—and all through the afternoons, she searched for someone who might just be willing to coach her. So far, all she could say was that she’d added _non, nein,_ and _no_ (in the Italian sense) to her list of answers. The European coaches had been fairly polite, though very straightforward. She could appreciate it.

Her mother, in the meantime, remained a bloodhound, feigning mild interest to mask what was surely a burning need to know. She held out for three days before she came tapping on Esther’s door one night, hair still wet from her evening post-work shower, to sit on the edge of her bed and talk to her.

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“Yep.”

“This isn’t because you feel like you need to lose weight, is it?”

“No.”

“You’re perfectly fine for the average American woman.”

_But not for a peak condition figure skater._

They’d had the same thought. Esther could see it in the gleam her eyes took on, as she leaned in and asked, almost conspiratorially, “You know, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were thinking about skating again.” She paused, perhaps waiting for an answer. Esther looked up from her screen, currently displaying Josef Karpisek’s website, and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re right,” her mother shook her head, smiling ruefully. “You said you were done, and you’ve never given us reason to doubt before.” She leaned over and kissed her forehead. “That’s good. Trying to return at this stage…well, it’d be nearly impossible.”

A cold rock settled in the pit of Esther’s stomach. “Yeah.”

Her mother patted her hand. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

She left the door open behind her. Sighing, Esther got up to close it, glanced at the website again, and marked it for tomorrow. Switzerland was six hours ahead: far too late to call. And what would be the use, besides? Josef Karpisek had a top-notch skater to focus on; he’d be too busy aiming for Worlds to even think about risking his reputation on a known burnout.

 _Maybe she’s right,_ she thought, as the pit seemed to grow colder and heavier, _maybe this is impossible and I’m just stupid to think there’d even be a chance…_

Standing, she went to her closet, pulling down her box and taking out her gold from Junior Worlds—then, she dug deeper, closer to the back, and took out an older case, brushing off the glass and peering inside.

The year before, she had taken Bronze. It was a moment that should’ve brought her joy, but there was only disappointment, and she’d spent her entire time on the podium struggling not to cry. She’d come off the ice thinking only of escaping as quickly as she could, already rehearsing the talk from her parents— _you’re talented, you’re better than this, we think you’re capable of winning gold if you would just try your best—_

“Excuse me,” she’d looked questioningly towards the man who’d said it, glancing around for who he might’ve been speaking to.

“Me?” She clutched her bouquet a little closer.

“I enjoyed your performance, Miss Markowitz. I can tell you worked very hard on it.”

For some reason, his comment, simple as it was, stunned her. In the moment, she hadn’t been able to tell why. “You…did?”

“Yes,” he gestured to the medal hanging around her neck. “You’re off to a very good start. If you keep working like that, I believe you could be the best skater in the world someday.”

Esther blinked. She frowned, looked at the medal again, and then dropped it onto the coverlet, diving for her laptop and her phone, lying next to it.

 

“No!” Esther muttered, aloud. She wracked her brains, trying to recall what details she could.

Suddenly, her heart was thumping in her throat.

__

Esther swallowed.

Esther pulled up the ISU website, found the results page for Junior Worlds 2012, and started at the ladies’ singles tab. _He had a French accent._ She started checking through, cursing under her breath when her googling the coach’s name returned no results. She reached the end of the list—nothing.

 _Okay, don’t panic, it’s not uncommon for coaches to watch the other events._ On a hunch, she tried pairs, but none of the men that her results returned were right. _I’ll know him when I see him. If I remembered his face all these years…_

Men’s singles was similarly unsuccessful. In desperation, she checked ice dancing, but he was nowhere to be found. “Damn it!” Had she imagined him? No, there was no way she could’ve dreamed up someone to say something so nice to her, not even in the wildest stretches of her imagination.

She picked up her phone, fully prepared to complain to Jay, when she had a thought.

 _Was he scouting?_ She turned back to her computer screen. _Where did they hold Worlds that year? They were in Nice._ Her heart jumped into her throat. _He had a French accent. Who was at Worlds that year?_ She found the appropriate page, started the process all over again. Why the hell had her younger self not thought to ask this man his name? What if her older self’s resurgent career hung on finding him?

 _There._ Right in the middle of the ladies’ singles, a French flag. It could mean nothing. Plenty of skaters had coaches from different places than their own. It was even common. But maybe, just maybe…

The skater had finished twelfth overall. Her coach was listed there, in small print, _Emanuel Adélard._

She took a deep breath, copied his name, swapped tabs, pasted it into the search bar. “Here we go,” she breathed, and tapped the enter key. His name popped up in a box to the right of the search results, but they didn’t come with a picture: she clicked the images tab, and her breath caught.

She pulled up his Wikipedia page, her blood pumping with _I found him, I found him, that’s him_.

Esther paused. _What_ am _I going to do now?_ The logical thing would be to wait until the morning and call the rink, introduce herself, ask if he remembered the nice pity pep talk he gave a teenager three years ago, and whether he’d be willing to coach her pathetic ass back to the big leagues—

Her fingers were already on the keyboard, searching for flights to Paris.

 

Esther looked over the ticket prices, thoroughly aware of the graduation money sitting in her bank account.

She bit her lip. It was a distinct possibility. She’d gotten nothing but no’s so far. But this…

__

She pulled up the ticket page, fully aware she was probably spending entirely too much, but there was no waiting a few weeks for her now—it was do or die. She dragged her suitcase out of the closet and started rolling clothes, darted back to her laptop, and chose the earliest flight out in the morning—takeoff was five hours out. Esther packed in a flurry, taking everything she thought she might need, filling up a backpack in addition to her suitcase. By the time she was done, it was almost one o’clock, and she had a little more than four hours to go before she left.

Filled with grim resolve, she stripped off her pajamas, donned the clothes she’d picked out for travel and crept down the stairs with her bags. She slipped into the home office and collected her passports, toeing delicately by her parents’ door, though she could hear them snoring within. She left a hastily-scribbled note on the counter. _Going to see a friend. I’ll be out of town for a few days._

It was with a soft sigh of relief that she closed the door softly behind her, locked it up and headed to the bus stop. She could sleep on the plane—maybe she’d be better at it than she had in the past. The bus deposited her at South Station: she boarded the Silver Line and watched the city go by in the window, eerie in the night.

Takeoff was three hours away when she arrived at the airport, strangely sluggish in the early morning hours. It was a stark contrast to the brightness of the lights. To Esther, time seemed to flow differently as she sat and watched the sun begin to creep over the horizon.

It still wasn’t quite light when she boarded the plane—the first hints of sunrise were beginning to show as they began to taxi, and Esther watched the pinks and oranges tracing across the horizon as they lifted off, half-listening to the captain’s announcements, stated in French and repeated in English.

She might have dozed, on and off. When she arrived in Paris it was almost six in the evening, local time—she had enough presence of mind to purchase an overpriced tea and packet of biscuits at one of the numerous cafes—her stomach was churning too much for her to consider anything else—and sat down at one of the tables to pore over her next leg of the journey. Soon enough, she had a ticket for the train down to Marseille, departing within the hour. Part of her wanted to be surprised that she hadn’t received any messages from her parents, but when it came down to it, she really wasn’t.

She boarded the train, showed her ticket, and settled in again to wait. Esther wondered, as she always did, whether she attracted any looks—she’d spent her first time in Europe petrified that they could smell the American on her, until a man had spoken to her on the train, asking her in German if she knew what the next stop was. _I belong here as much as anyone else,_ she reminded herself, and turned to watch France go by. She’d almost forgotten how beautiful it was, how she’d missed it. There was a part of her that went quiet in Europe; like she relaxed and remembered how to be herself. She loved Boston, but this was a part of her somehow, in a way she couldn’t quite put into words.

Her lack of sleep was beginning to get to her. She wrapped herself around her luggage as best she could, snapping wide awake for stop announcements and dozing on and off between.

By the time she reached Marseille, she had been awake for nearly forty-eight hours. Blinking through it, she soldiered on, stepping out of the station and looking around for a cab. The hour was late, but the sky was still light—and Emanuel Adélard’s rink was open twenty-four hours.

That was where she directed the driver. It wasn’t too long of a ride, but it felt like it took forever. Esther sat stock-still in the back, petrified halfway between her exhaustion and her racing pulse.

She thanked her driver as she disembarked, and turned to face the doors. Slowly, dragging her suitcase behind her, she pushed inside. Inside, there was a girl behind the counter—she jumped when she caught sight of Esther, who could only imagine how she looked right now: dirty, disheveled, sleep-deprived. “ _Bonsoir_ ,” she said, quickly remembering herself. “Can I…help you?”

“I’m looking for Mr. Adélard,” said Esther.

“He’s in the rink.” The girl pointed. “He’s almost done. You could wait out here, and I would tell him that someone is here to see him?”

Esther debated that course, shuffling her feet. “Uh…yeah. Sure.”

The girl rushed through the door she had pointed out. Esther, in the meantime, did her best not to fall asleep on her feet. _Come on, Esther, you made it this far._

Footsteps approached, and she blinked rapidly, standing up straighter. There he was, pausing in the doorway with a similar expression of surprise—it was undoubtedly him, a little older and greyer, but she’d found him.

“Mr. Adélard, my name is Esther Markowitz. You may not remember me, but several years ago we met at the Junior Worlds, and you complimented the effort I’d put into my program. That comment has stayed with me, and while I’m sure you’re aware of my previous record in the Senior division, I want to try again, and I came here to ask if you would coach me.”

That was what she’d had in her head, at any rate. What actually came out of her mouth was a slurred rendition of his name, followed by a faint awareness of an alarmed shout, the sensation of falling, and oblivion.

 

* * *

 

Esther juddered awake and immediately regretted it, cursing brilliantly as the sun rushed into her wide-open eyes. “God, _fuck_.” Blinking to dispel the floaters, she looked at her surroundings, and immediately frowned. _Where the hell am I?_ At first, the recent past seemed like a fever dream, but as it attained more and more clarity, her genuine hope was that she was dead, and the afterlife looked a lot like the guest bedroom of a charming apartment in southern France. _No need to take Esther out drinking, she does all the stupid shit drunk people do completely sober!_ Tossing back the covers, she scrambled to her luggage, digging through the front pockets. Her wallet was still there, as were her keys, passports, phone (nearly dead, and showing about a dozen texts from Jay, as well as a single message from her mother: _Have a good trip. I would prefer more notice next time you decide to do something like this. Be safe._

Of course. It wasn’t a conversation with Leah Markowitz if there weren’t any mixed messages. With a sigh, Esther opened Jay’s conversation—

 

With a touch of guilt, Esther tapped out a reply.

She paused, realizing that it was probably too early on the eastern seaboard for Jay to be awake to receive these. Breathing deeply, she sent another message.

Dropping her phone back into the open pocket of her backpack, Esther proceeded hesitantly to the door, opening it a crack. She peered out, caught a whiff of eggs, and followed the scent all the way to the kitchen. There sat Emanuel, dressed like he’d woken up a while ago but not bothered to get ready, sipping on coffee and thumbing through his phone.

Esther hesitated in the door. “Good morning,” she said, finally.

He turned, took her in, and looked—relieved. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” _Right. Passing out in front of people might lead them to think that you have something wrong with you besides your own unique brand of stupidity._ “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday—it was yesterday, right?”

“Yes,” Emanuel assured her, with a chuckle, “You haven’t slept through the day.”

“Am I keeping you from something?” she gestured at him.

He shook his head. “No. Today is an off day. Your timing is impeccable.”

Esther folded her hands awkwardly in front of her. “So…this is your house?”

“It is.”

“It’s nice.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you for…taking care of me. I’m so sorry—”

He shook his head. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

“Right.” She shuffled on her feet. It wasn’t exactly how she’d pictured their first meeting.

“I have to say, Ms. Markowitz,” he said, after a moment, “I was surprised to see you here.”

Esther’s eyes snapped up to him, and she felt herself blushing. “You know who I am?” she blurted.

“I found your passports in your bag,” he admitted. “I wanted to know who you were.”

“That’s all right. I wasn’t in much of a place to tell you.”

To her surprise, that drew a genuine laugh from him—one Esther returned, hesitantly.

Emanuel was older, probably five or ten years ahead of her parents. His hairline was receding, and greying where it grew in, and his unshaven face showed more silver than black; but he was in good shape, and handsome in his own way, down to his rather distinctive nose.

“Well…” she began, unsure of herself. “Do you…remember me?”

“From the 2012 Junior Worlds?” he asked, surprising her again. “Of course.”

“Really? But…” she was interrupted by a very loud rumbling from her stomach. “Um…”

“Of course, you must be hungry. Sit down. I’ll make an omelet for you too.” He went to the counter, where Esther could spy the remnants of such an endeavor. “You do like omelets?”

“Yeah. Of course.” She sat down, feeling slightly useless, as she typically did when people insisted on doing things for her—something told her Emanuel wasn’t going to accept her help, no matter how strongly she insisted.

“What would you like in it? Onions, green onions, tomatoes, spinach, pepper, pancetta, mushrooms?”

“All of that. Except for the pancetta.”

“Ah. Are you vegetarian?”

She shook her head. “Kosher.”

“I see.” He finished scrubbing out the pan, rinsed the suds and set it right back on the burner, allowed the heat to dry the water before adding a splash of oil. “Your French is excellent. Did your father teach you?”

Esther frowned. “No,” she said, after a moment. “I had a tutor for everything, language included. My parents wanted to make sure I would be able to converse with my competition.”

“So you speak others, as well?”

“English, of course; German, and Russian. I know some Italian, Mandarin, and Japanese, too, enough to get by.”

“Interesting.” A handful of mushrooms and onions dropped into the pan with a sizzle. The smell was enough to have Esther’s stomach speaking up again. “And why did you come here?”

His back was to her, so Esther couldn’t see his face. His tone was still light, as far as she could tell (she wasn’t as good as reading people in French), but it didn’t seem like a pointed question.

“Well…” she chewed her lip. “I remembered what you said to me. About how you could tell I’d worked hard. It stuck with me, but I think I was too young to understand back then. All my parents ever complimented was my ability. For them, it was something that I just naturally had, and if I wasn’t performing to that standard I wasn’t trying hard enough. It really messed me up. I think…I’m only just starting to understand how much.” Unable to look at him, she stared at the tablecloth, idly tracing the checkered plaid weave. “You saw my Senior debut. Everyone did…I had my entire identity riding on being the best, and when I failed, I…I imploded. I walked away, because that was easier than learning how to pick myself back up again.”

Silence. The pan fell to a muted sizzle as two beaten eggs were poured into it. She turned to the stove, and found Emanuel facing her, watching with an indecipherable look. It should have scared her, sent her back to the tablecloth, but she met it unflinchingly.

“A long time ago,” she started, “you said you thought I could be the best skater in the world, and I have a feeling you would be the perfect coach.”

Emanuel considered this. His eyes lowered, his lip tensed thoughtfully, he turned back to tilt the pan and ensure everything was cooking evenly.

“It will be difficult,” he said. “You’ve been absent for three years. It isn’t terribly unusual for skaters to make comebacks, but your circumstances are somewhat unique.”

“I know,” she replied, quietly, already bracing herself for the final rejection, condemning her to college and a nine to five job, a husband from the class two years ahead of her, a picket fence, two point five kids and a dog—

“We’ll have to start right away. You’re young, still, and you look to be in decent shape already, so if we time it to the Grand Prix series—”

“Wait,” Esther cut in, realizing her mistake late. “I…uh, are you saying yes?”

Emanuel looked over his shoulder, giving her a slightly quizzical look before he looked back to ensure the omelet made it all the way onto the plate. “I am, yes. Here you are.” He set the plate down before her, along with a fork. “Cheese?”

“I…” she shook her head, vigorously. “No, no—you’ll really do it?” she gaped. “I—well, I have to admit, I didn’t think I would get this far.”

“We can discuss the details later,” Emanuel assured her. He sat across from her, looking meaningfully at her omelet. “Eat. That’s my first order as your coach.”

For a moment, Esther could only continue to stare at him. Then, heart soaring, she picked up her fork and complied. Above her, Emanuel smiled.


	2. String Quartet No. 13 in A Minor, D. 804

After omelets, Emanuel seemed restless, and as Esther finished her plate, he plucked it up and took it to the sink for washing. “I’d like to see what you’re capable of,” he said, over the sound of the faucet running, “If you’re up to it, of course.”

Esther had always been good with jet lag, and she had managed to hold out on sleeping until last night, local time, so she was nearly all the way adjusted. She still felt a bit off, but experience told her that would be gone soon enough. The prospect of being on the ice again brightened her (and wasn’t that still a novel thing). “I’m up for it.”

“Excellent. I assume you’ll want to change.”

“Yeah.” Esther stood up, pushed her chair in, and headed back to the guest room. _Emanuel’s my coach now,_ she thought, again—she’d been turning it over in her mind since he’d agreed to it, but part of her was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. She forced it down, focused on stripping out of her slept-in clothes and tugging on some appropriate ice rink attire. She checked her reflection, winced at the rat’s nest of her hair and decided to deal with it later, containing it in a bun for the time being. _Just going to the rink to show my coach what I can do…no pressure._ She took a deep breath, nodded at herself, and headed back into the kitchen. Emanuel was already there, dressed and waiting. He opened the front door and waved her through, turning to lock the door behind them. “I usually jog there. It isn’t far.”

Esther rolled her neck, wincing at the cracks. “I’ll follow you.”

Emanuel took off, showing remarkable speed for a man his age. Esther was only off-guard for a moment before she hurried after him, catching up in a matter of time that she considered reasonable. There were a few looks as they ran down the pavements, but Esther was too busy not losing Emanuel to give them too much notice.

At last, the ice rink was looming ahead. Esther stepped on the gas, zipped past Emanuel and hopped from one foot to the other by the door as he caught up. “Soon you’ll be leading me here, then,” he joked, opened the door, and waved her through.

The same young woman from the previous night was sitting at the front desk. “Mr. Adélard?” she frowned. “I thought today was your day off.”

“It is,” he replied. “Which means it’s mine to do with it what I will.”

She shot a mousy glance at Esther, eyes widening slightly. Esther returned her very best bland, close-lipped smile. _Hey, it’s me. The girl who passed out here yesterday._

“Speaking of that, Clarisse, I’ll need to readjust my schedule.” He turned to Esther. “The rink is just through there. You’ll find a rack inside. Go ahead and warm up; I’ll be with you shortly.”

Esther nodded, heading down the hall he’d indicated. _Right. Ice. Skating. Gotta have skates._ The rack was, as promised, along the wall adjacent to the doorway into the rink. She perused the sizes, wondering if they were different in Europe. _This one looks right…_ She stuck a foot into it. _Nope, too big._ The next size down proved to be the right choice. _I guess I’ll have to get my own pairs again,_ she tied the laces without thought, stood and headed to the ice.

The rink was not unoccupied, but the far side was empty, and so that was where Esther went, sliding into her figure eights.

She slid to a stop as she caught sight of Emanuel entering. He was approached by a few of those on the other end of the rink, chatting idly with him. He spoke to them all as he donned his skates, but left them behind as he put his feet to the ice, joining Esther at the far end. “Do you need more time to prepare?”

Esther shook her head.

With the careless ease of an expert, Emanuel slid backward, never once turning away from her. _Huh._ “Whenever you’re ready.”

Esther went to the center of her half, taking a deep breath. She turned delicately to the side, felt her arms spreading to the invisible pull of the strings, her hands trembling faintly as her fingers arranged themselves into a ballerina’s position. She went from standing to spinning, slowly, skating out in a wider circle, eyes half-open to see where she was going, the cello was about to thunder in—

_Triple flip._

She landed it clean, _knew_ that she had by the way it shivered up her leg and through her whole body, but she hardly had time to think about it before she was taking off for the double loop, and then, the triple axel. _Her_ triple axel.

Next, the combination spin. She released her catch-foot layback, leapt through her double salchow, single toe loop, triple Lutz, and launched into the loose, lyrical step sequence. She let the choreography carry her through her final axel, dropping into her last spin and rising to stand only to turn her face down to the ice, relaxing as her master’s vision was fulfilled.

It was a moment later that she was aware of the sounds from the other end of the rink. There was a scattering of applause, and Esther remembered herself, dipping her head to her audience. She turned to Emanuel, and found herself taken aback by the neutral look he wore.

“Well?” she prompted, playing it off as best she could.

“I can see why you won gold with this,” he said. “It’s impressive enough that a female skater can reliably land a triple axel. To do so as a Junior is nothing short of remarkable. Your spins are excellent, and you displayed an ability to answer the demands of dynamic music.”

Esther blinked. “Thanks.”

“So why were you so absent?”

“I…what?”

“You executed all of your components flawlessly,” he said, “Even now, three years later. But you still look stiff. You looked stiff then and you look stiff now, like someone else is jerking you along the ice and you’re just following. Perhaps some ISU judge considered that a ‘performance’, but I want to know why you aren’t present in your own routine.”

For a moment, Esther could only gape, speechless. “I…” she fumbled in the dark, grasping at the receding fog for an answer.

Emanuel looked appraisingly at her, and she could feel her pulse rising. _Oh God, he’s figured me out. This is where he tells me I’m not really viable, why did I think I could ever be competitive again—_

“Did you choreograph this routine?”

“I—no, my mother did. She choreographed all of my routines.”

Something sparked in his eye. “Did you choose this music?”

She shook her head. “No, she did that too.”

“Every time?”

“I didn’t pick what I was skating,” Esther said, somewhat hotly. “At the end of every season, she’d bring me two new routines and a set of costumes and tell me what I’d be doing for my next competition, and I’m sorry if I was supposed to rebel against that, but that’s not the kind of kid I was.” Her temper receded, almost as quickly as it had surged, and she suddenly couldn’t look at him, fastened her eyes to the ice. “I’m sorry.”

The moment of silence that followed felt like an eternity, but he was the one to break it.

“There’s no need to apologize.” He gave her a slow, searching look. “I want you to decide on your theme for the Grand Prix.”

_Oh._

“Once you’ve done that, you’ll inform me of your choice, and I’ll design a short program for what I believe you can accomplish. The free program is yours. You will choreograph a free skate that, in your eyes, best represents your theme, and you as a skater. In the meantime, we’ll continue working on your elements.” He raised an eyebrow, presumably at her deer-in-the-headlights look. “All right?”

Esther blinked, barely refrained from physically shaking her head loose, like a dog scattering water. “Right.”

_What have I gotten myself into?_

“Very well. Now, show me what other spins you can do. I’m sure you know more than what was in that program…”

 

* * *

 

There was a knock at the door. Esther paused, waiting for Emanuel to enter, but he stayed on the other side until she called, “Come in.”

He opened the door and stuck his head in. “Dinner is finished. We’ll be eating out on the patio, if that’s all right.”

“Yeah, of course.”

__

Maybe she was overthinking everything.

 

* * *

 

The patio—which, in Esther’s opinion, was more of a balcony—faced south. The sun was setting on the adjacent side of the building, and it had left them in the lengthening shadows of twilight. Emanuel lit a candle; for warmth, light, and the staving off of bugs, and offered her the salad first.

“So,” Esther said, when she had finished and passed it back to him. “Tell me about yourself.” She refrained from wincing, barely.

He gave her that same, searching look, before attending again to his salad. “My name is Emanuel Adélard, I’m forty-five, I was born in Nanterre.” He chuckled at the tightness in her expression. “How would you answer that question?”

She thought a moment. “My name is Esther Markowitz, I’m seventeen years old, I landed my first triple axel when I was ten.”

Emanuel shot her a dry look. “Cheeky.”

Esther braced her elbows on the table, sitting her chin over folded hands. “Do you have family?”

“My parents retired to Alsace some years ago,” he shared, drizzling balsamic vinegar, offering her some. She accepted—it had the viscous look of really good balsamic vinegar. “I visit them every year; it’s lovely there, and the wine is excellent. My brother lives in Toulouse. He has a wife, and two sons.”

“But not you.”

He peered at her across the table, one corner of his mouth turning in a wry smile. “Am I so obviously a bachelor?”

Esther smiled and shrugged, turning her field greens in the bowl. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Well.” He paused to regard her with a critical eye. “I already know of your parents. Do you have any siblings?”

Esther shook her head. “I don’t think my career left them with enough time for another baby.” She looked up, and his expression suddenly schooled.

“Do you have friends back home?” he asked, quickly.

“Well. There’s Jay. After I left skating, my parents wanted to send me to boarding school, but I went to public high school. I guess we’re friends.”

“You guess?” Emanuel inquired, eyebrow quirking.

“We like each other’s company and all, but she’d probably be fine without me.” Esther shrugged.

A long silence. “There are no others?”

“I wasn’t easy to make friends with.” Esther stirred her salad again to preoccupy herself. “I didn’t have time to play, or go to birthday parties. There were always lessons, or training, or practice. And I was a little asshole, besides,” she chuckled, “I thought I was so much better than my rinkmates, all because I knew who Tchaikovsky was and I put my nose up at the stuff they were listening to. Stuff like that. I was pretty much the archetypical brat of a coach’s kid. I mean, tell me you’d want to be friends with me.”

Emanuel just looked troubled. “Don’t worry,” she said, quickly, “I got better. I mean, it was mostly thanks to…a close friend I had at the time, a few years ago. Probably the best I’ve ever had.”

“Oh?” Emanuel stilled, interest piqued.

“We…sort of bonded over the fact that we didn’t really connect with anyone else. He’d been bouncing around the States for a while; he was in Colorado Springs one year, Detroit the next, and he finally ended up in Boston under my parents. He was…shy,” she found herself smiling at the memory. “It wasn’t like everyone else shut him out, more like I jumped at the chance to be the worldly, open-minded one who extended the hand of friendship to the new kid. But…we were friends. It was good for me, I think. He taught me to like normal things. Music composed in the last fifty years, good books, sneaking out and eating food that’s not good for you.” As suddenly as it had come, the smile was gone, and the telltale pulling at her throat had begun.

“You’re not friends anymore?”

“No. We haven’t spoken since I left skating.” She shoved a bite of lettuce into her mouth, and prayed that he wouldn’t ask her anything more. Talk, for the rest of dinner, was mercifully shallow. She excused herself as soon as she was finished and went back to the guest room, closing the door behind her. She picked up her phone, thought of texting Jay, but nothing came to her mind, and she soon set it aside.

 _How long will it take him to figure out he regrets taking me on?_ she wondered, covering her face with her hands and lying still and silent in the dark.

 

* * *

 

The next day was off-ice training. Emanuel seemed satisfied by that, at least, but Esther supposed that even she couldn’t disappoint someone all the time.

He was waiting in the front room when she emerged, freshly showered and dressed, her hair as dry as it could be without the forty minutes of air it needed for all of the water to be truly gone.

“Put your shoes on,” he said, dressed to go out, toting a garment bag, “We’re going to run errands.”

“Oh. Okay.” Esther went back to her room for socks, and returned for her shoes by the door.

They kept a leisurely pace to the bus stop, one that felt nice on her sore muscles, and caught the one going to the waterfront. They disembarked at the shopping mall: their business there turned out to be dropping off the suits in the garment bag for some adjustments. Esther lingered by the cufflinks, drawn in by a citrine pair that caught the light and glinted invitingly. They felt familiar, somehow, but she couldn’t place it. Emanuel finished and came to see what had so captivated her, and told her “You have a good eye,” before leading her outside. Still, the cufflinks endured in her mind’s eye, as clear as if they were before her, and there they would remain.

There was a sandwich stand outside, and it was there they found their lunch, took it out to the wall overlooking the marina, and stood there watching the boats as they ate it. The water glittered blindingly on the sun, and Esther inhaled deeply of the sea air, closed her eyes and basked in it.

“Do you like Marseille?” Emanuel asked her.

She opened her eyes. “I do.” She waited for his elaboration, but her curiosity won out. “Why?”

“You have a choice, as to where you will train,” he pointed out, “And who you will represent. You are also a citizen of Luxembourg, yes?”

 _Oh. Yeah._ “Right.” It had been a very matter-of-fact thing: her mother had informed her a few months after her tenth birthday that she would be acquiring citizenship in her father’s country, and that it would make traveling to competitions in Europe much easier. Shortly after New Years’ (not the ensuing one, but the one thereafter), her father went to file the paperwork, and six months or so after that, her mother had gone to Washington and returned with a red passport, blazoned with a gold lion. Esther had laid eyes on it for perhaps a moment, before it was whisked up to the office to live amongst all the other important papers. Her (nearly) twelve-year-old self had little presence of mind for a process that so sparsely involved her, and after that it had simply become a fact of life: she and her father stood in less lines when she was assigned to the Trophée de France, or some other competition that happened to be held in Europe. She’d never set foot in Luxembourg in her life.

“You could return to America, or you could go to Luxembourg. The decision is, ultimately, yours to make.”

Esther balled up her paper, tossing it into the nearby waste bin. She leaned on the wall, watching the water. _I already have a reputation in America._ Her stomach twisted—just thinking of going back set her on edge. She didn’t know Luxembourg at all, and they didn’t know her.

“I think I’d rather stay in Europe,” she said. “I like it here. I don’t want to go back to America.” _The more distance that stays between me and Boston, the better._

Emanuel straightened up with a smile. “I’ll admit, I was hoping to hear that.” He tossed his wrapper, and started back toward the bus stop. “So, if it’s agreeable to you, I’ll start looking for accommodations in Luxembourg City. I believe you might like to know the country you’ll be representing.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Esther agreed, somewhat faintly. She’d only just started to get used to Marseille. _It’ll be an adventure,_ she told herself, and almost believed it. She _wanted_ to, but something inside stopped her from giving in to the excitement.

They stopped at the grocery store on the way home, picked up a few essentials for that night’s dinner, and turned for the apartment from there.

“Oh,” Emanuel said, as they were setting the bags on the table. “I meant to ask you.” He paused, looking nearly pained. “Your parents. Do they know you’re here?”

Esther bit the inside of her lip, considered lying for the briefest moment. “No.”

Emanuel looked at her, and she saw something in his eyes that she might’ve called understanding, before she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze anymore. “They’re going to find out eventually,” he said. “I might want to be in control of how they do.”

“Yeah,” she said, flatly, and busied herself with unpacking the bags, anything to keep her from turning and leaving the room like a surly teenager. If it were up to her, she’d have her parents stay oblivious until they found out through the grapevine, but even they probably couldn’t be expected to leave her alone that long. Emanuel was right, she knew, but she wished he wasn’t, and the force of it was enough to have her avoiding her phone, as if that would buy its silence.

 

* * *

 

Emanuel’s warning was the canary in the coal mine.

The following day, they practiced on the ice in the morning, and Emanuel left her alone when he returned to the rink for his afternoon lessons. A part of her felt guilty for pulling him away from the place he’d carved out, but then again, he was the one that seemed most eager to leave.

Esther had considered, more than once, looking up what she could about Luxembourg City, but decided against it every time. The things she was interested in wouldn’t turn up on a Wikipedia page; they would just have to wait until her arrival. She would discover the city on her own. _My new home._

Home was a strange thing to think about. True, she’d lived in Boston nearly all her life, but it had always been from one place to another, carried on her parents’ chests through airports and into crowded stadiums, plugs in her ears to shield her from the noise. The past two and a half years had been the longest she had spent in one place.

 _What is home?_ The things she felt when she thought about Boston certainly didn’t match up to everything she’d been told. Home was safety, security, warmth, the knowledge that you were loved. If that was the case, there was only one person that had ever made her feel like that.

Her phone rang. She stared at it, warily, feeling her heart set to pounding. Slowly, she reached for it, viewed the caller ID. _Mother_ , the screen announced, in innocuous white letters. They may as well have been the headsman’s axe.

She squeezed her eyes shut. It was on the third ring already. It would be so much worse for her if she didn’t pick up the first time.

Blindly, she punched at the green icon, holding it up to her ear. “Hello?”

“ _Esther?_ ” her mother’s voice came through the speaker. Esther could feel her nails threatening to break the skin of her palms, tried to loosen her hands. “ _We haven’t heard from you in a while. We were starting to worry._ ”

 _That’s a first,_ Esther fought back the dry retort, choked on the near-hysterical laughter it threatened to provoke. “I’m fine.”

“ _Where are you? Your note didn’t provide a whole lot of detail_.”

She wanted to lie. She might have been able to argue that, in that situation, it was understandable. Duty, noxious and rotting-honey sweet, stuck her tongue. “I’m in France.”

“ _France?_ ” there was a long pause. “ _Is this some kind of late graduation trip? You should’ve told us, we would’ve been more than happy to come with._ ” She could hear them chuckling, the familiar way it echoed off the kitchen walls, and her breath shuddered in her chest.

“It’s not a trip.”

“… _oh?_ ”

“I’m…going to be here for a while. In Europe.”

“ _I sincerely hope this isn’t about a boy_.” The unaccustomed listener might’ve missed how her light, jocular tone had been drained of all its sincerity.

 _Actually, I’ve met this dashing Frenchman named Emanuel. He’s professor-handsome and more than twice my age, and he lets me live in his guest room and buys me expensive things…_ “No,” Esther snapped. “It’s…I’m skating again. I’ve found a coach, and I’m training to compete in the Grand Prix this fall.”

There were a full three seconds of silence on the other end. There were a lot of things Esther would have expected: spluttering, indignant accusations of lying; obnoxious, false, repetitive claims that she could’ve just come to them; the passing of the baton to her father, who was always called in to talk some sense into (try the good cop approach on) her—she’d heard it all before.

Everything except what she got.

“ _Absolutely not. Of all the things you’ve ever done—this is beyond stupid. You’re smarter than this, Esther._ ”

Something in Esther switched off. All of a sudden, it seemed like it wasn’t happening to her. _So, I’ve finally made you angry. Enough that you’ll show me, at least. Good. It’s high time we were honest with each other._

“ _I’m booking the next flight back to Boston. You’re coming back here, and we’re going to talk about this. You obviously aren’t mature enough to handle the freedom we’ve given you._ ”

_Freedom? Is that what you called discarding me as soon as I stopped being a vehicle for your legacy?_

“ _I think we’ll need to reevaluate whether you’re ready to go to college this fall._ _Do you understand me?_ ”

“I’m not going back.”

“ _…excuse me?_ ”

“You heard me.”

“ _Esther Deborah_ —”

Something flared up in her then, kindling as suddenly as a match dropped in gasoline. “No. I’m done putting up with your bullshit. I don’t know why I even matter to you; I already failed at being your perfect little skater. I bet you wish now that you would’ve hedged your bets, huh? Well, I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad you didn’t have other kids whose lives you could make fucking miserable. You don’t get to ignore me for three years and start caring again. I’m going to stay here, and I’m going to be the best skater in the world, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” She jerked the phone from her ear and disconnected the call, stared at the screen, and hurled her phone into the pillows, caught between violent catharsis and sickening fear.

She sat on the edge of the bed, breathing like she’d run a marathon, put her face in her hands and rocked slowly back and forth. She stayed there until Emanuel came back, calling her name as he came in the door and announced his return; repeating it, concerned, after he wasn’t answered.

Slowly, Esther unfolded, rose and shambled out to the kitchen. She staggered as she got to her feet, took her first steps like a drunkard. “There y—” his eyes widened as he caught sight of her. “Are you all right? You look pale. Sit down.” He pulled out a chair.

She ignored it. “What are you doing?”

He looked, distressed, between her and the chair.

“I mean—what is it that you want from me? Why are you taking me on, and…putting everything on halt, dropping your entire life to move to a new country and coach a known fuckup, and _paying_ for everything, I sincerely hope you’re not putting yourself into debt with all of this. Seriously, what’s going on?”

Emanuel issued a soft sigh, his hand curling loosely about the back of the chair. “I see. I haven’t been as forthcoming with you as I should have been.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that, and it only sent her ratcheting higher. “I don’t even know who you _are!_ Or why you want me, or even if you _do_ want me, or if you realized how bad you fucked up and you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to cut me loose ever since—” her voice was starting to tremble, the way it did when it was time for her to stop talking, but the words were pouring out and they wouldn’t be contained, “I told you I wasn’t easy to make friends with. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s like I’m watching myself being a horrible person and I can’t do anything to stop it, it’s _my_ fault that I’m like this and I’m just so— _fucking_ lonely—”

Suddenly, his arms were around her, and she choked. Her voice died away, the rest of her breath shuddered out of her, and the next came in with a sob.

In most cases, Esther tried to avoid crying at all costs. It was a stupid thing to be ashamed of, she knew that, but it still made her feel weak, and vulnerable, and everything else she hated. She couldn’t be sure if it was the dam, which had been steadily cracking for what felt like years, finally breaking, or the confusion brought about by his closeness. Her heart thumped harder than a cornered animal’s, some of her distressed cries felt nearly like fearful wails; she didn’t know if she trembled simply to tremble, or if it was because his embrace felt nearly like a cage.

Eventually, her tears were spent—as they began to dry up, she relaxed, began to realize she felt…safe. It was a strange thing to feel, one she didn’t recognize at first. She had to name it herself, and once she did, she closed her eyes, clung to him like a lifeline.

“I apologize,” he spoke, as she sniffled into his lapel. “Overthinking is…a particular flaw of mine. A fatal one, you might say.” He continued, after a long pause. “It cost me my career.”

He loosened his hold on her. Esther, reluctantly, let him go as well. He gestured at the chair, still pulled out, and she sat down. “Really?”

He went to the sink, where he poured a glass of water and gave it to her, disappeared into the living room and returned with a box of tissues. “Thanks.”

He tapped his right knee. “I was skating at the national championship, in ‘90. I took off for my triple salchow—I felt it as soon as I came down. I couldn’t get back up on my own.” He looked at his hands, the regret plain in his eyes. “It wasn’t a dramatic injury. It wasn’t clear to me right away that it was all over. That was something I had to learn over a period of months.”

Esther looked at her faint, distorted reflection in the water glass, feeling that cold, sick churning in her gut that came whenever she thought about injuries.

“So I became a coach. If I couldn’t skate, I would channel that passion into helping others achieve their dreams.” He looked to her. Esther reached for a tissue and dabbed at her face. Anything to excuse not meeting his eyes. “If I couldn’t be on the podium, I could at least be the man credited with getting someone there.”

She paused. “You still want to win.”

He nodded. “I do.”

“And…you picked me.”

He frowned at her. “ _You_ came to _me_. You wanted it badly enough to cross the ocean and collapse from lack of sleep to ask me in person. I meant what I said to you, when we first met. Your natural talent, your aptitude—which you do have—they don’t mean anything if you’re not willing to work for them. When I look at you, I see someone who wants it.” He met her eyes, challenging. “Do you?”

Esther looked into the water glass, voiced the thought that she had never allowed herself to think. “Yes.” She raised her eyes. “I want to prove to myself that this is mine. Not something that was chosen for me. Something _I_ did. I want to show the world I’m more than what they saw three years ago. I want to win.”

He smiled—it was crooked, and it seemed that it had taken him by surprise, almost, like he hadn’t had time to prepare for it—and she found herself powerless to avoid returning it. “Good. I’m going to do everything I know to get you there.” He was silent for a moment, chewing on the end of his tongue, but finally he spoke: “I think you should see a therapist.”

“What?” Esther jerked, knocking her knee on the table. “Fucking—ow. That was a little out of left field.” She waved off his confused look. “Unexpected. It’s—an expression. I promise you, I don’t lose my shit like that, normally. I’m fine.”

“Is that you talking?” He probed, “Or your parents?”

She closed her mouth, suddenly aware of the new ground they were on.

“I…” she hesitated, nearly didn’t continue, but there was something that existed now that hadn’t before he’d taken her in his arms. “I told my dad once, when I was fourteen or so, that I wanted to kill myself, sometimes.”

His sharp inhalation, in the pin-drop silence of the kitchen, seemed louder.

Uncomfortably, she looked away. “I didn’t do it, obviously.”

“But…they did something, didn’t they?”

Slowly, she shrugged. “No. Dad gave me some bullshit talk. I don’t remember most of it. I was in a low place. I get ups and downs, you know? Fourteen was a bad year. A lot of it’s missing. Fuzzy spots. The gist of it was, I shouldn’t do it. Obviously. And that was that.”

Emanuel put his face into a hand, scrubbing wearily, muttering so quietly that she couldn’t catch what he was saying. “What you’re saying. About the ups and downs, the fuzzy spots—that’s why you should see a professional. They can help you in a way that you’ve been denied for far too long.”

Esther picked silently at a cuticle. “But…how I live now. This is how I’ve always been. What am I going to do if they tell me I’m not me? What if I’m a completely different person and everything changes?”

Emanuel reached across the table, stilled the nervous twitching of her hands. “You’re still you. You’re always going to be you. Your past, your experiences, they won’t change.” She looked at him, searching for an ulterior motive, eyes narrowing when she couldn’t find one. _Maybe…there just isn’t one._

_He wants to win. We both want to win._

“You really think it’ll help?”

“As your coach, it’s my job to make sure you’re at your best. You can’t do that if your mind isn’t healthy.”

She looked, again, into her water glass. “Okay.”

He nodded, once. “I’ll look for someone in Luxembourg City.”

There was a long silence. She could feel Emanuel’s eyes on her through it all, but he never pressured her to look at him, not even when he finally spoke up. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah,” she said, softly. “I’ve decided on my theme.”

She could hear the raised eyebrow in his words. “You have?”

She turned to him, with a nod, feeling the blaze that the phoenix had kindled settling in to smolder quietly beneath her heart. “Rebirth,” she said, in English. Then: “ _Renaissance_.”

Emanuel’s smile was broad and crooked. “I suppose I should get moving with your short program.”

 

* * *

 

To say Esther was surprised when Emanuel came, only a few days later, to the kitchen table, set a laptop before her, and opened a slideshow of an apartment in Luxembourg City, was an understatement. “You’re thinking about this one?” she browsed the pictures, taking in the cosy corners, the sensible brown wall paint, the wood floors, the furniture matched smartly to its surroundings.

“More than thinking about it,” he said, with a touch of pride. “It’s ours.”

“It’s—” her eyes bugged. “Are you serious? This says it’s…five minutes from the train station.”

“Only ten minutes from the airport.”

“There’s _laundry_.”

“It comes with the furniture.”

“It—did you sell your soul?” Esther chuckled, incredulously. “That’s all I’ve got.” She relaxed a little. “When do we leave?”

“I’ll need the rest of the day to pack, I think, but I think we can leave tomorrow morning.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you’re expecting shipments of more than that suitcase you brought.”

Vigorously, she shook her head. “No. I could be ready in five minutes.”

“Well,” he sniffed, mouth ticking, “Some of us aren’t so prepared.” Esther rolled her eyes, turned back to the cycling pictures. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah.” She sent it back to the pictures of the bedrooms. “I’ve always wanted a skylight.”

“Hm. I’ll call Hugo, he owes me a favor…” Emanuel stepped away, already muttering to himself, and left Esther to look admiringly at the pictures of their new home.

Incredibly enough, things went just as Emanuel had said they would, and the next morning, they packed themselves into Emanuel’s little maroon Volkswagen and set out on the road.

“You know,” Esther said, after they were underway, when she’d thought to check their route in Google Maps and subsequently found it was an eight-hour trip, “I can drive some of the way.”

“No need,” Emanuel replied.

“If this is a chivalry thing—”

“Any appearances of gentlemanliness on my part are a fortunate front to cover the fact that I am a terrible passenger,” he told her. “I hate riding along in a car I’m not driving, and if those I know are to be believed, I’m a terrible nuisance about it.”

“Oh, good.” Esther wiggled further into the passenger seat, getting as comfortable as she could. “I hate driving.”

Emanuel chuckled. “Then we’re well-matched in this.”

She had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about the car. “Yeah,” she said, feeling that warm, fuzzy feeling again. “We are.”

They crossed the border in the early afternoon, just in time for a late lunch, since they’d gotten up before the sun to facilitate their departure. “Ah,” he announced, as they closed upon the sign that welcomed them to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. “Welcome home.” Esther couldn’t help but turn to peer out of her window and watch the landscape of her second home country pass by. They stopped in one of the outlying towns and ate at the pub. Esther didn’t say a word the entire time, too absorbed in listening to the locals at the bar speaking a language that was at once almost understandable and completely unintelligible. _Is this Luxembourgish?_

They got back in the car and drove on, and it was in the blink of an eye that they were entering the city limits. Downtown was upon them almost at once, and Esther drank it in, until Emanuel pulled off the main drag and took them down a quiet side street. He parked before a building that looked tastefully old, but not decrepit. Antique, that was the word.

“Here.” Emanuel handed her a keyring and her suitcase. “At the top.” She pretended not to hear his amused laughter as she went immediately to the front door, unlocked it and began the task of dragging her belongings up three flights of stairs. At last, she was at their landing. Esther took the other key on the ring, pressed it into the lock, and turned it, stepping tentatively inside.

It looked like it did in the pictures. Being in it, though, was a little different. It had…new house smell, and everything was impeccably folded and arranged. The bookshelves were empty—she smiled, thinking of the cardboard boxes in the back of the car. _That won’t last long._

The kitchen was tiny, but well-equipped. Not really meant for two people, unless they were willing to be _very_ close. One bathroom for each of them; those were fairly identical, mirrors of each other. She poked her head into the bedrooms, across the hall from one another and adjacent to the bathrooms. She went back and forth a few times, but finally decided on the left bedroom. She had a good feeling about it; liked the way the pale sun filtered through the window and filled the room in soft light.

She sat down on the bed; then, she flopped onto her back, listened as Emanuel came huffing up the stairs and put something heavy down. A few moments later, his head popped through the doorway. “I see you’ve made your choice already.”

Esther shrugged. “You sent me up ahead.”

“That I did. So it appears I’ll have to content myself with this one.” He poked his head into the opposite room for a perfunctory sweep. “I’ve brought the books up.”

“Does the landlady know we’re here?” Esther broke in, knowing that if she let his train of thought leave the station, there would be no stopping it.

“What? Yes, I spoke with her on the way up.” He returned to the main living area, raising his voice to carry across the distance. “I have a few things yet in the car.”

Esther got up off the bed, “Shall I help you carry them up?”

Emanuel snorted. “I’m not _that_ old.” Esther held up her hands, replying wordlessly; _I never said you were._ He shook his head at her, smiling the smile typically given to a mischievous child. “I have a few things I need to take care of. You can unpack here, or perhaps you’d prefer to go out and explore a bit…”

“Maybe…” she wasn’t quite sure how or why it came to her, but it did—like a flash of lightning, and with nearly as much of a jolt. “What day is it?”

Emanuel frowned, taken aback by her sudden energy. “The eighth of April.”

“No, no, the—the day of the week, is it—”

“It’s Friday.”

“Friday!” She’d thought so. Her intuitions were rarely incorrect. “I’ll go out, then.”

“All right, here.” He fished into his pockets. “You can use the bus to get around.” He pushed a few bills and a handful of change on her. “Come back before sundown, all right?”

“I’ll be back before then.”

“Well, you’ll probably beat me here, then.” He watched her go back to her room, retrieve her purse, and head for the door. “Do you still have the keys?”

“Yep.”

“All right. Have fun, don’t get into any trouble.”

“No promises!” she called over her shoulder, and shut the door behind her. She started down the stairs, pulling out her phone and googling her objective. It was in an expected place, and a twenty-minute ride by bus. _Traffic not included,_ she thought, pulling up the bus lines, and went out the building door to find the right stop.

The ride didn’t turn out nearly as long as she expected it to. Once she stepped off, she had only to walk along the street, cross, and stroll down a side road to find what she was looking for.

 _The only Jewish bakery in Luxembourg City,_ she hesitated, with her hand on the door. _Might as well introduce myself. We’re about to be very familiar._

She returned the polite greeting of the man behind the counter. The store was empty, in deference to the hour: those who ran the home had likely been by already, and Esther imagined that it would get busy again, once all of the working types finished their week. Her eyes fluttered a little as she inhaled the faint but lingering smell of fresh challah, remembering how she had watched her grandmother braid it when she was very young. Yes, they were certainly baking their own bread here.

 _Now let’s see, what else do I need?_ She slid over to survey the other products. _Ha. I wonder what Emanuel would think of kosher wine._

“Excuse me, Miss.” The man behind the counter was hesitant to speak up, but looked perfectly even-keel as she turned to him. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before.”

Esther offered a knowing smile. “Your regular crowd is that regular?”

“I see some unfamiliar faces around the holidays, but it isn’t that time of year.” He leaned on the counter. He reminded Esther of her grandfather, in his reserved demeanor—then again, her grandfather had been European too.

“I just moved here,” she provided. “My name’s Esther Markowitz.”

“And I am Aaron Gagnier. Welcome to the city. Did you move from elsewhere in Luxembourg, or are you new to the country as well?”

“It’s my first time here,” Esther admitted. “My father is Luxembourgish, but I’d never been before. I’m here now for a job.” _Close enough._ She’d rather not have the “I’m a competitive figure skater” conversation now, especially with nothing to back it up.

“It’s always good to have new faces. Will we see you at the synagogue tonight?”

Esther shifted. “Probably not tonight. I only just got here today; it was eight hours on the road from Marseille.” Aaron made a noise of sympathy. “I’m not really the type to jump into these things headfirst. I’ll do my best to speak with the rabbi here sometime in the next week, but I’ll most certainly be there next Friday.” _I wonder how many times he’s heard that,_ she wondered, taking in his light smile. _No matter. Either way, I’ll be there._ “Feel free to warn everyone of my coming.”

Aaron chuckled, as she placed her gathered items onto the counter. “Is this everything?”

“That, and one of those good-looking fellas on the rack there behind you.” Aaron turned to retrieve a loaf, taking it down to wrap in brown paper. Esther stood while he rung her up, digging in her purse for the pocket money Emanuel had sent her out with. “Thanks. Well, nice talking to you, Mr. Gagnier. I’ll see you in a week, if not before then.”

“We are closed on the weekends,” he informed her, indicating the sign on the door.

“I did see that. Thank you again, _ah gutten Shabbos_.”

Bag in hand, Esther consulted her map again. “All right, now where to for goy groceries?” There was a shop near the apartment, so she caught the bus heading back, got out a few stops early and hunted down the last few things on her list. By the time she returned to the apartment, it was half past three, and she had plenty of time.

She unpacked the box of crockery, conveniently placed in the kitchen, and took custody of the soup pot. “In you go,” she said, to no one in particular, dumping the chicken legs into the bottom and seasoning liberally, before she covered the entire affair with water and stuck a lid on it to let it sit.

 _Now, as for you…_ She’d made matzo balls enough times for it to be ingrained. The family recipe, older than dirt and probably smuggled out of Egypt between two loaves of matzah, was saved to her phone, in case she needed to consult, for some reason. As it was, she let her hands work while she remembered the old disputes about whether they should be firm or soft, sinkers or floaters, and chuckled. _I hope Emanuel likes eggs._

“All right, into the fridge with you.” She’d always talked in an empty house, the more so when she was cooking. Perhaps it came from a need to fill space. It had always seemed so silent, in her family home…

 _A house is not a home until you cook in it, bubbeleh._ Her grandmother had certainly never ceased to tell her so, to the point where Esther would recite it along with her. Before Boston (and it seemed like a thousand years ago), they had lived in New York, not far from her mother’s family, and they would visit there every Friday night for Shabbat dinner. The Markowitzes were old; they’d come through Ellis Island, Lev in 1931 and Deborah a year later, and they would regale her with stories about growing up in old Manhattan. Leah was their only child, and they’d loved her dearly, that she remembered.

She also remembered the moments of tension; where Deborah would talk about the little Hebrew school that opened up in Brooklyn, or Lev would mention someone named God—and Leah would pull Esther into her lap, reminding them with a sharpness she had learned to mask in her later years, “She can decide that for herself, when she’s old enough.”

Leah had allowed tradition: recipes and old family stories, but no rituals to go with them. Her parents had died when Esther was five, heart attacks taking them both in quick succession, and not long after, they’d moved to Boston, to the house in Back Bay, and everything was about Esther’s future in skating.

“Mom, were Grandma and Grandpa Jewish?” she’d asked, when she was thirteen.

Her mother, then in the middle of poring over a stack of score charts, froze. “How did you know?” she demanded.

“I’m reading _Number the Stars_ for Ms. Holland.” Ms. Holland was her reading tutor, at the time. “They were Jewish. Like Ellen.”

What her mother did, she couldn’t remember. It was another blank space. She did remember that Ms. Holland had been dismissed, and replaced with Mr. Harley, who had made her read _The Catcher in the Rye._

She hated _The Catcher in the Rye._

“Mom,” she’d said, stirring her oatmeal one morning—it never succeeded in filling her up for as long as it was supposed to, but her parents insisted it was good for her. “I want to go to Temple.”

“I don’t think you have enough time in your schedule for that.”

“But I’m not training on Friday nights.” She’d pushed. Esther hardly ever pushed, and her heart had been pounding like it was about to break out of her chest, but this was _important_.

“You need that time to study.”

“I’ll get all my work done.”

Her father had shrugged. “I don’t see harm in it.”

Thus, Esther had been set loose every Friday night, sent two blocks up the street and expected back after nightfall. She carried mace and a flashlight. Rabbi Gould observed the young girl who came and sat in the back, kept her head down, and left before the oneg for three services before he approached her.

“Hello, Esther.” (He’d introduced herself and gotten her name the first night she was there.) “How are you liking it here?”

“It’s fine,” she said, not telling him that the sermons were so beautiful to her that she still had yet to make it through one without crying.

“I notice you don’t speak much to everyone else. Would you like me to introduce you?”

With the hesitancy of one who does not know how to ask, she shrugged. “You could.”

He had done so, and, when he learned that she walked back alone, enlisted members of the congregation to conveniently head back the same way.

“I want to eat kosher,” she’d told her parents, one night at dinner.

The lecture that followed had sent her to her room, shivering and struggling to remember how to breathe—all she could remember was _I won’t allow you to jeopardize your career, not when you’re so close…_

After she’d flunked out, though, there’d been nothing stopping her. Nothing but her shame, which sent her to a different synagogue than the one she’d been attending. Her parents no longer cared what she ate, or where she went. “Going out with friends?” her parents would ask, as she neared the door on Friday evenings.

“It’s Shabbat,” she would say, dully, not bothering to remind him that she didn’t have friends.

She’d made the best of it. She stayed for oneg, got to know her new congregation—most of them students at Boston College—and chatted with them, introduced herself to Rabbi Drummond and told him, three weeks after her arrival, that she wanted to convert.

It would be two years, in January, since her mikveh.

She fiddled with her grandmother’s Magen David, around her neck. She’d worn it every day since; before, she had worn it only to services, hadn’t yet felt worthy of its constant presence.

Esther shook off her thoughts and checked the time. A pot of water went onto the stove to boil, and she pulled the batter from the fridge. Her mind was pleasantly blank as she rolled balls, dropped them into the water, and watched them float. “There you are,” she murmured, lowering the temperature and letting them simmer. She chopped carrots and celery, noting the aroma of the broth with satisfaction—she didn’t need to look to know it was coming along, but she did anyway, just as the doorknob jiggled and Emanuel returned. He paused and sniffed the air, looked at Esther in the kitchen as if he was surprised to see her there.

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

She shrugged. “You never asked.”

“What are you making?” he strode closer, surveying the vegetables on the board, the pot on the stove.

“Ever had a proper matzo ball soup?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Well, you’re in luck. They’re almost done; I just need to pull the chicken carcass from the broth and dump the vegetables in.” She slid her slotted spoon under the cheesecloth, tugging gingerly at it to avoid burning her fingertips. Emanuel came close with one of the bags from her shopping—“ _Merci beaucoup_.” He tied it off and set it near the door, to remove later.

“Not to complain, but…what brought this on?” he asked, watching her scrape carrots and celery into the pot.

She looked over her shoulder, taking note of the position of the sun as she did so. “It’s Shabbat. Seventh day, day of rest. It’s about to be, anyway.”

“Oh. Oh!” comically, he slapped a hand to the side of his head. “Forgive me. I didn’t even have it in mind.”

“It’s fine. I forgot about it too, up until a few hours ago.” She set the lid back on the pot, turning to lean on the counter. “Say, I have a question. Are you Jewish? Or—was your family…?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I didn’t want to assume,” she chewed her lip. “It’s just, you’re pretty knowledgeable—”

“When I learned,” he said, “That my new skater was Jewish, I thought it would be appropriate for me to be well-informed.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

“Is that strange to you?”

She turned aside. “A little, yeah.” She glanced at the timer again. “Oh, almost go-time. Good thing, too; the sun’s nearly down.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Turn the heat off and scoop those out when the timer goes off,” she directed, pointing. She dug in her bag and in the box that had brought Emanuel’s kitchenware. She set the candle on the table, listened as the timer went off and was silenced, as the sound of the simmering water died down.

It was time.

She opened the matchbox, withdrew one, and struck it, holding the wisp of flame to the wick and ensured it caught before she dropped it onto the tea saucer she’d chosen for its resting place; her last bit of fire until the next sunset. With her hands, she blocked out the light, and recited the old words in a hushed whisper, borne of old habit. She kept her eyes closed, even as she lowered her hands. _Keep us in good health, us here and those that I’ve left behind. Give me the strength to do this._ Her prayer finished, she opened them, and looked fondly at the flickering flame, watching the way it made shadows dance on the walls.

She turned back to Emanuel, and found that he had been watching her. “Good Shabbos.”

“I’ll admit, I don’t know if there’s a typical response.”

She smiled. “You can just say it back.”

“All right. Good Shabbos, then.” Emanuel said, softly. He cleared his throat and pointed. “I’ve moved them to the platter. What do we do now?”

Esther chuckled. “Here.” She retrieved two plates from the box of kitchenware, dropping a matzo ball into each and going to the stovetop to ladle broth over them. Emanuel followed her to the table, retrieving spoons along the way. She set one bowl at his place, and went across to the other. “Now,” she said, “I say kiddush, and then we eat.”

Emanuel watched with the same fascination that she’d seen after she lit the candle, and remarked afterwards, “The one for wine is quite a bit longer.”

“That it is,” she agreed, doing her best to keep a straight face as she poured a glass, handed it to him and watched him drink. She stifled her snort at the twitch of his eye, and the tight, thoughtful expression he adopted as he set the glass down.

“Interesting.”

“Usually, we say _l’chaim_ ,” she teased, lifting her own (shallow) cup in salute and draining it.

He was a great deal fonder of the challah: it was just one more thing for them to agree on. After his first taste of the soup, he accused her of holding out on him; she reminded him that he was the one who insisted on doing everything, and he relented.

“One of the reasons I chose this apartment was for the natural light,” he offered, once he had finished expressing his appreciation for Esther’s heretofore undiscovered culinary aptitude. “That said, I can operate the lights tomorrow if you need.”

She shook her head. “It’s just one day. We’ll see how it goes. If we need, we can install timers.”

“All right. I’ll certainly cook.”

“No need. I’ve got it covered.”

He looked at her, blankly. “But…you—”

“The whole point is to remind me that I don’t control the world,” she said. “Life is supposed to be a little harder for me. Having you wait on me hand and foot kind of defeats the purpose.”

Emanuel relaxed into what Esther was beginning to call as his thinking posture. “I see. Admittedly—I’m a bit lost, when it comes to the meaning of some of these things. It’s not always clear, from the outside.”

“Believe me,” she chuckled, thinking of empty rituals; traditions carried out with none of the weight of years behind them. “I understand. And…I’ll tell you. Whenever you need me to.”

They talked for what must have been hours, but felt like minutes. Esther slept until late in the morning, stayed in bed and read until the sun began to sink and bleed orange into the sky.

After dinner, that Saturday night, Esther opened her laptop and went to her inbox, glancing over what had arrived for her in the past day—then, she clicked _compose,_ and began a message to Rabbi Drummond, thinking, after, that she would send one to Rabbi Gould as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Esther's free skate - 2013 Junior Worlds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQgEBkdfNlg)
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>  **Notes on Judaism**  
>  Esther's faith is a topic very close to my heart, and much of her story is my own. Nevertheless, I understand that all of the readers might not be so familiar with Judaism, so I've compiled a little index to explain some of the concepts explored in this chapter. By order of appearance:  
>  **Kosher:** Adjectival form of the dietary restrictions of Jewish people (kashrut), which mandate, among other things, that pork and shellfish are not to be eaten, that meat and dairy products are not to be consumed together, and that animals must be slaughtered in a ritual, humane manner to be fit for consumption.  
>  **Shabbat:** The seventh day of the Jewish week and the day of rest; observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. No work is to be done on Shabbat, to include starting or putting out fires (thus restricting the use of electronics: sparks are considered fire), and cooking. Instead, the day is dedicated to rest and spiritual betterment.  
>  **Challah:** Plural: chalot. A braided loaf of bread especially associated with Shabbat. Challah loaves sit under special covers until the end of service, where (at my synagogue, at least) it is then blessed and passed out among the congregation.  
>  **Kosher wine:** Sometimes referred to colloquially in America as Manischewitz, after the most famous producer of the stuff. Manischewitz and their imitators produce a sweetened wine with a distinct taste.  
>  **Synagogue:** A Jewish place of worship; might also be referred to as "temple". Services vary from one to another, but there is usually a Friday evening Shabbat service. Saturday morning services are also fairly common.  
>  **Ah gutten Shabbos; good Shabbos:** The same phrase; it's just in Yiddish the first time. Literally "good Sabbath". A typical greeting used among Jews on the Sabbath. As evening approaches, however, Jews do not use this greeting, as this is the time when our leaders, Moses, Joseph, and King David, passed away. Sephardi Jews and those who favor modern Hebrew are more likely to say "Shabbat shalom."  
>  **Goy:** Plural: goyim; adjective: goyische. Simply, a non-Jewish person. Not a slur.  
>  **Yiddish:** The language of Ashkenazi Jews. Hardly spoken anymore, except for select words and phrases, like bagel, schlep, chutzpah, bupkes, and schmuck. Chances are, you speak more Yiddish than you think!  
>  **Ashkenazi(m):** Used to refer to Jewish people of European descent, except for the Iberian Peninsula. From "Ashkenaz", the Medieval Hebrew word for Germany. As opposed to Sephardim (Spanish/Portuguese Jews) and Mizrahim ("Eastern" Jews - the term has frequently changed meaning).  
>  **Matzo ball soup:** A traditional Ashkenazi Jewish recipe. Matzo balls are typically made with matzah meal, eggs, water, and a fat, commonly schmaltz (chicken fat). They are served in a chicken broth, frequently with carrots and celery, and for many they're a stable food at Passover.  
>  **Bubbeleh:** Yiddish term of endearment used, typically, for a young child, and often by grandparents.  
>  **Hebrew school:** In the United States, this is usually used to refer to what is, functionally, the Jewish equivalent of Sunday school: an institution that exists outside of typical education, focusing on Jewish history and learning the Hebrew language. Outside the United States and Israel, Hebrew school is more likely to be used to refer to a school where most or all of the curriculum is taught in Hebrew. Not to be confused with a Jewish day school, an institution that teaches both a secular and Jewish education, and is called a "day school" to differentiate it from boarding schools with the same function.  
>  **Oneg:** Short for Oneg Shabbat, in English, "joy of the Sabbath". After service, everyone gets together to eat and socialize: this is the joy of Shabbat. In my experience, it's usually shortened to oneg in conversation.  
>  **Mikveh:** A ritual immersion, associated with purification. Its best-known use is the role that in plays in the conversions of Conservative and Orthodox Jews: converts approved by a beth din (rabbinical court) will strip naked and immerse themselves in the water to complete their conversion.  
>  **Magen David:** The Star of David; Judaism's most visible and well-known symbol. It's on the flag of Israel.  
>  **L'chaim:** "To life!" A traditional Jewish toast before drinks.


	3. Memories On Ice

On a cool morning in April, while they both sat at the breakfast table and talked briefly about the news of the world, Emanuel informed Esther that he had finished her short program.

“I’ll show it to you today, and we can start working on it. Would you pass the salt?”

Esther paused, fork hovering halfway between her plate and her mouth. A moment ago, they had been discussing heavy rain in Sri Lanka. Esther had been half-paying attention, one eye trained on the article announcing an exhibition in Hasetsu, Japan—its focus was, primarily, on how it seemed Viktor Nikiforov really was abstaining from competition, though whether only for this season or indefinitely remained an unknown. She had been keener on the last sentence: _the exhibition, which will feature Yuuri Katsuki of Japan and Yuri Plisetsky of Russia, in his Senior debut, will be airing next Thursday_ …

“It’s ready?” she passed the salt, sitting still as she tried to figure out how she was feeling. “Well…do I get to know any more? Will you at least tell me what the music is?”

Emanuel shook his head. “You’ll know soon enough. Words fail with these things. I’d rather show you the full picture.” His eyes practically _gleamed_ with conspiracy.

“Well, you’ve consigned me to impatience until then,” Esther chuckled, doing her best to shove down the sudden spike in her pulse.

They rode out to the ice rink (a good distance from the city center; too far to run), booked for them through the morning. “How are your bruises?” Emanuel knelt expectantly and checked over her wrappings.

“They’re fine,” she wiggled her toes.

Emanuel straightened, lips pressed tight, like they always were when he looked these things over. Esther took that as her cue to tug her skates on. They had been one of the first things he’d sent for, and Esther had spent the longest time just looking at them when they’d arrived, treasuring what they represented.

Emanuel had her short program ready. It was really happening.

She took the ice and started warming up, watching from the corner of her eye as Emanuel brought out a speaker, set it on the wall and began scrolling through an actual _iPod_ (and wasn’t that just endearingly old-fashioned). She kept going until he turned and waved her over. She skated to a stop beside him. “Are you okay to demonstrate this?”

“My knee kept me from the repetition I would’ve needed to remain competitive.” He found what he was looking for, and handed her the device. “A single demonstration is not outside my ability.” He skated towards the middle of the rink. “Which is good; otherwise, I would make a poor choreographer!” He came to a stop, faced her, and pointed at the iPod. Esther glanced down at the interface, pressing down on _play_.

The first notes cued up: an old-fashioned electronic organ, backed by a bass riff. The moment the vocals started in, Esther twitched in recognition. _Oh_. There was no mistaking that baritone.

Emanuel began, tilting gracefully from his starting position, tracing wider and wider arcs around the center of his axis. He was terribly graceful—he skated like he had been born to have ice beneath his feet, rather than solid ground. To be taken out at nineteen… _He must have been devastated._

For a moment, he was almost swimming through the air, an absent, almost lazily euphoric smile on his face. Esther would’ve almost sworn he’d forgotten where he was, what he was doing—then, like the crack of a whip, Emanuel leapt into a butterfly spin, sliding back into that leisurely pace as he went around and around. He rose for a short series of steps, a lunge right into a triple axel. From there, it was nearly straight into the combo: triple flip, triple loop; no time to breathe before the scratch spin, changing his foot to drop into the sit spin, raising his arm for the twist. Esther was breathless just watching.

Finally, he slowed down, though she quickly realized that the step sequence that followed was deceptively difficult, slower but no less intense. The chorus came back, and Emanuel reclined for a layback spin, slowing, rising and making it a crossover, speeding up again. He skated forward, soared through a final triple axel, and adopted a finishing pose—face down to the ice, arm flung out to the side. The music faded; his shoulders rose and fell, there was a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Esther jolted. _Oh. It’s over._

He looked up, then, grinning. “So? What do you think?”

She blinked, trying to sort through the jumbled mess of her feelings; prickling hot and uncomfortable with how on-the-nose the lyrics were. _Where do I start?_ “You really think I can skate that?”

He joined her at the wall, plucking his water bottle and flipping up the top to take a long swig. “Of course. I wouldn’t have given you this if I didn’t think you were capable of it.” He looked at her, searchingly. “Do you like it?”

“No, I do!” she said, quickly. “I like it a lot. It’s just…a bit different from what I’m used to.”

“Well, that is the point, isn’t it?” he gestured to her. “Of rebirth.”

Esther leaned on the wall, closed her eyes and felt thoroughly stupid. “Right.” She opened them, and pretended that she didn’t see Emanuel’s look of concern. “Let me try it now.”

She threw everything she had into training, learned the routine quickly, with all of the expediency her parents had come to expect of her. And yet, every time she came to a stop, Emanuel still had that troubled, thoughtful look on his face, the one that told her everything without words. _Not good enough._

She tried everything she knew, pushed harder and worked longer, until she was doing it in her sleep, until she woke up sore and her feet threatened to bleed and she finished the routine somehow gasping for air and choking on it all at once.

“Esther!” she didn’t realize she’d collapsed until Emanuel was pulling her, back up from where she’d sunk to her knees. Her hands were cold where they’d pressed to the ice, in spite of her gloves. “That’s enough for today.” He kept his arm tight around her as they skated to the edge, and only let go of her to push a water bottle on her. She wasn’t sure whose it was. “Drink.” He kept a stern, watchful eye on her, and she tried not to shrink. “We’ll take tomorrow off.”

Esther let go of the water bottle; both gasped for air. “I’m so close,” she insisted. “I swear it’s almost there, I just—I need to keep working at it…”

“Esther,” Emanuel cut her off, though he had softened considerably. “The series is five months out. You don’t need to get it right away. You have time.”

Esther was trying to listen, but his words were registering slowly, and her pulse wasn’t slowing down, in fact, it was speeding up, she felt faintly sick—

 _Okay, okay, deep breaths, in seven, hold seven, out ten._ It helped stave off the immediate edge of panic, but there was nothing for the lingering dread, settling in her chest like a lead weight, making her stomach churn.

“Esther?” Emanuel’s hand lighted on her arm. “Esther, are you—”

“Yes, I’m having an anxiety attack,” she said, through her teeth. She would regret snapping at him later, and she would apologize, but right now he looked almost as frightened as she felt, and it wasn’t helping at all.

“All right, do you…want to sit down?”

“Get me off the ice,” she said, and Emanuel helped her to the edge of the rink. “I’m fine, it’s not like I can’t walk.” She hobbled to a bench, sat facing the lockers and tried to breathe.

Emanuel sat beside her. “Dr. Patel gave me some exercises. I’m supposed to help take your mind off of what’s triggering you.”

“Well, unless you pull me from the Grand Prix series, that’s not going to happen,” she said, tightly. Esther closed her eyes and breathed. _In seven, hold seven, out ten._ “I don’t know what to do. I either get things right the first time, or I don’t get them at all. And what I’m doing clearly isn’t working.” _God, I’m probably not making any damned amount of sense._ “I don’t know what made you think I could pull off that routine, but you had it wrong. I can do all the moves, but I just—I don’t—I can’t _get_ it.”

Silence, except for the sound of her breathing. Slowly, an arm wound its way around her shoulders. “I’ve been watching you skate for nearly six weeks now. I’ve seen things that I think, if utilized properly, will set you apart from the rest.” He squeezed at her arm with each one, like it was some sort of counter. _One._ “Your strength is exceptional. There are elements you pull off that give some male skaters trouble, and you make it look easy.” _Two._ “You jump like a frog. I would’ve killed for my triple axel to have the height and distance yours does; proportionally.” _Three._ “But…the most important thing that I saw, was _you_. When you get truly into the skating, when you stop thinking about everything else, you have an incredible presence. It’s…intense, and ethereal, and I want the world to see it. I want them to see _you_ skate. Not the puppet. Not this…creature of restraint; what you’ve been since I gave you this routine. If you want rebirth, you’ll have to embrace it. Leave whoever you were behind. If you’re going to win, it’ll be on your own terms. You will have to _make_ this your own.”

Esther took in a deep, shaking breath. The worst of it was beginning to recede. His arm was grounding her, more than she’d expected it to. “Being detached…that was what my parents wanted. Restraint. That was what they always told me. There was beauty in limitation.” She sighed, put her face in her hands, feeling the hard lump in her throat, the tears threatening. “I _want_ to skate my way. But…before I do that, I have to accept that I…” her breath caught. “I fucked up.” Her lip started to tremble, and wouldn’t stop no matter how she bit down on it. Her next breath came in, shuddering and wet. “Everyone expected me to come into Seniors at the top, and I _blew_ it,” the tears were coming too fast to wipe up, she couldn’t stop shaking. “I screwed up, in front of _everyone_.”

It was nearly three years gone, but it was as if she was feeling it for the first time, the weight of everyone’s expectations and her failure crashing down on her like waves on the sand; relentless and infinite. Emanuel squeezed her harder, turned to envelop her completely and rest his head over hers, make soft shushing sounds. “It’s not the end,” he said, over and over, “This isn’t the end.”

When she at last began to calm down, he held her at arms’ length, looked her in the eyes to make sure she heard it. “What happened, happened. Now you acknowledge it, and you move on, stronger for it.”

Esther swiped at her face with her sleeve, wincing at the dry salt tracks that were left behind. “I…I don’t know if it ever really hit me. Maybe…I tried not to think about it, and I…” she shook her head, sighing. “I don’t know. The last two and a half years…looking back on them now, it’s like…looking in a fog. There are a few things that stick out, but trying to remember…I try to get closer, and I look around, and everything still looks the same; I can’t tell where I am apart from where I started. I don’t know if I’ve moved at all.” She swallowed. “The last few weeks…I’m just now realizing that I’m coming out of it. It’s like…this vibrancy, and clarity that I never knew existed before. I guess…I know what living is, now. Truly living. And now that I do, I’m afraid of…going back there. The fog. Sometimes I feel it, creeping in on the edges…”

Emanuel reached for her hand. “We’ll take tomorrow off,” he said. “I’ll call Dr. Patel, and we’ll get in as soon as possible.” He squeezed. “Okay?”

Dazed, Esther nodded.

“Let’s go home.”

_Home._

 

* * *

 

“It sounds like a depressive episode.”

From where she was seated on the couch, Esther didn’t meet her eyes. Emanuel had maintained a polite, attentive gaze, nodding along and looking occasionally at Esther, but she, for the most part, had made a valiant effort at counting how many wood planks made up the floor of this particular office.

Dr. Patel was the best English-speaking therapist in Luxembourg City. She was tall, beautiful, and always put together. She had creases under her eyes, and two pairs of glasses; one with teal frames and one with red. She was wearing the red ones today, with matching shoes and lipstick. Perhaps that was what made Esther uncertain. She was professional, but kind, and everything you’d ever want in a shrink, but she’d always been slow to trust. Typically, when her sessions began, she would leave Emanuel to wait in the front with his book, but today she had turned and asked if he would come in.

Everything important that she’d said had been to him.

“It isn’t uncommon for depression and anxiety to be seen together. They can be quite an insidious combination. The symptoms of one often trigger the other.”

Esther released a short puff of air. “Tell me about it.” She felt Emanuel’s eyes on her, winced, and looked up for the first time since she’d sat down. “I’m sorry. I’m still feeling a bit off. I tend to feel the aftereffects for a day or two.”

“Would you tell me your symptoms?” she asked, picking up her pen.

“Sure.” Esther rubbed at her temple. “Uh, irritability, obviously.” Dr. Patel indulged her with a small smile. “Uh, I get tired easily. I’m sort of groggy in general. My brain’s not quite as quick as it would normally be.” Emanuel was nodding thoughtfully at her side. “Uh…this is kind of a weird one, but, indigestion. My appetite’s low and when I do eat something, sometimes it’ll aggravate the GI tract a bit. I don’t throw up or anything, it’s just a bit more delicate than usual.”

“That could be related to the stress.”

“Yeah, maybe. Not the worst idea.”

“All right.” She glanced up the page, to the notes she’d already taken in their near-forty minutes, and tapped the end of her pen on one of her neat little bullet points. “Now, I want to talk about what you said here. You mentioned that you’re afraid of regressing into this state you described before. The fog.”

Esther hesitated, but she nodded. “Yes. I don’t know how I would handle…” she trailed off, as recollection struck her like lightning. “Actually, I do. The last time I fell into one of those…depressive episodes, if that’s what we’re going to call them—I thought I would rather die, than…having to face another day of it. I don’t know if it would get to that point now. I have a lot more to live for, and I’m in a much better place than I was at fourteen, but…that kind of hopelessness, just…that unending expanse of grey, and nothing…I don’t want to feel that ever again.”

Dr. Patel nodded, made a few more notes. “We’re coming to the end of our session, so let me give you my impressions. I think I’d like to have you take an official screening. I can interpret your symptoms to the best of my abilities, but a test will allow for a more accurate diagnosis, and we can decide from there what the best options are for treatment. They may involve medication, they may not. We’ll have to see.”

Esther looked at Emanuel; at the same time, he turned to her. He looked at her, expectantly, she shrugged, then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “We can schedule that.”

“All right. We can schedule it after your appointment next week. I have a block directly after it that’s still open.”

“Works for me.”

“Right. Let me put it in my diary now so I don’t forget… Now, as for the immediate future.” She leaned across the desk, bracing on folded arms. “Have you ever had a pet?”

Slowly, Esther shook her head. _Hell, I was a little girl, once. I probably asked for a puppy and got a twelve-minute lecture about inconvenience, better uses of money, and hair all over the upholstery._

“I think that it may help you. Not only do animals provide companionship, but the way that they depend on you for their wellbeing, it can ground you. Knowing that you have someone that needs you, even if they have four legs, can keep you from spiraling into that loss of purpose that you described.”

It _sounded_ logical, when she put it that way. “Well, we live on the third floor, so I don’t know if a dog would be a good option, but…” she looked to Emanuel. “Maybe a cat would be okay?”

“I can speak with the landlady,” he agreed.

Dr. Patel tapped at her keyboard, tore off a slip of paper, and wrote an address on it—she passed it across to Esther. “That’s the address and phone for the animal protection organization here in the city. They should be able to answer any questions you may have.”

They said their thank-yous and their see-you-next-weeks, checked themselves out at the receptionist’s desk and headed out for the bus stop.

As they stood waiting, Esther spoke. “I want to practice tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? No one would blame you for taking another day to recover.”

“If we take a day every time I’m feeling off, there’s no way we’ll be ready in time.” She turned to him. “I’ve got some new perspective. I want to get back to it. Trust me on this.”

Emanuel looked like he wanted to argue more, but he sighed, and he nodded. “Very well.” He rocked thoughtfully on his heels, hands in his pockets. “Do you still want to choreograph your free program?”

Esther paused for only a moment, taken aback by the question. “Yes,” she said, without thinking, surprising herself again, this time with her answer. She thought that he looked pleased, but she couldn’t be sure: he turned and looked down the street, and didn’t turn back until the bus arrived.

 

* * *

 

“You never realize how long four minutes is until you think of all the skating you have to fit in it,” Esther said, rolling onto her back and holding her notes aloft. The page was covered in half-completed lists of elements, filled with so many scratch marks and wiggly lines to be almost unintelligible. She turned her head for an answer, but her companion only lifted his head to look at her, before he lowered it again. “Oh, like you’d know. You sleep for…what is it, sixteen hours a day?”

It turned out that their landlady was very all right with cats, having two herself. Thus, she and Emanuel had gone to the shelter, where they’d been shown to a room where they could meet the cats. He’d asked about every friendly creature that rubbed its face against his fingers and wove, purring, around his ankles—perhaps it had been her first-timer’s uncertainty, but Esther hadn’t felt quite _right_ until she saw the soot-grey tom with the amber eyes, extended her hand to him and watched him eye it, and her, suspiciously.

“This one,” she’d said, even as the shelter worker told her that he’d been there a good deal longer than the other cats, as Emanuel asked her if she was certain. “I’m sure.”

They had taken Suie, as he was named, back home with them, where all of the proper trappings of a cat’s life had been set out in preparation for his arrival. Suie had spent the first day pacing the apartment, surveying his new surroundings—that night, however, he jumped up on Esther’s bed, curled up on the opposite pillow, and went to sleep purring. Since then, he had followed her everywhere, trotting to the door and meowing loudly whenever she returned home. He’d been a part of her life for a grand total of four days, but Esther had gotten alarmingly attached in that short span of time.

She picked up her phone, checking the time. “Oh, shit.” She rolled over and opened her laptop, turning the power on and heading for the right website. “Look alive, Suie. It’s about to start.” Esther sat back against the head of the bed, sent the picture to full screen, and settled in for Hot Springs on Ice.

She came in after the initial interviews—nearly all of it was in Japanese, but Esther kept up reasonably well, waited impatiently as the commentary discussed the upcoming season. Yuri Plisetsky was thought to be a promising competitor; everyone was interested in seeing how Yuuri Katsuki would return from his losses in the previous season; just what was Viktor Nikiforov doing?

Finally, the time came for the performances. _All right, Plisetsky’s opening._

Yuri Plisetsky was an unknown to Esther—he was too young to have been in Juniors with her, and most of his notable career had coincided with her willful departure from figure skating. A few quick google searches and a scan of his Wikipedia page told her he was the previous year’s gold medalist at Junior Worlds. Watching him take the ice as he was announced, in a silver-white bodysuit, blond hair trailing out behind him, she felt her heart clench, and she prayed that his debut would be kinder.

 _On Love: Agape. He certainly looks the part._ The music began in a soft child’s voice— _sic mea vita est temporaria, cupit ardenter caritatem aeternam_ —Esther’s grasp of Latin was academic at best, but it was enough for her to get the gist. This was the Greeks’ agape: selfless, unconditional, ultimate.

What became quickly clear to her was that Yuri Plisetsky was a _beast_. There was a slenderness to him still, but somewhere within, an incredible reservoir of strength, one he drew from to propel himself into the air for an effortless triple axel. _He makes it look so easy._ The music spoke of patience, of benevolence, but Yuri Plisetsky was _relentless_. His quads were all saved for the second half—quadruple salchow, triple toe, flawless. She shook her head, slow and disbelieving. A perfect quadruple toe, and a combination spin that finished in a Biellmann, just to top it off. _Shit,_ I _can’t do a Biellmann._

As he finished, his chest was heaving, hands clasped and held to the sky in a wordless plea. Esther blinked, and relaxed. “I’m glad I don’t have to skate against him,” she said, scratching behind Suie’s ears, the corner of her mouth ticking as he started to purr. _That was certainly impressive,_ she thought, watching as he acknowledged his audience. _But…a little detached. Is that what Emanuel meant…?_

She didn’t have much more time to think about it, because Yuuri Katsuki was emerging for his turn. If Yuri Plisetsky had been the day, then he was the night—dressed in black, hair slicked back, lending him an almost dangerous look. Something was different. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but…

 _On Love: Eros. It isn’t unintentional, then._ If Yuri Plisetsky was sacrifice, Yuuri Katsuki was desire.

The music started, an alluring flutter of guitar strings. Whether it was his steps or the sound of his skates cutting through the ice that sent the shiver up her spine, Esther couldn’t be sure—either way, she was enthralled. It was _Stammi Vicino_ all over again. She was leaning into the screen; she couldn’t look away. All of his jumps were in the second half—she inhaled sharply as he stepped out of his quadruple salchow, exhaled when he put his hand down and stayed on his feet. _Come on._ She bit at her thumbnail, glued to the motion of his feet through the quadruple toe, triple axel, _right at the end?_ _Holy shit,_ the spin, the careless sweep of his arms and the electrifying, final turn into the finish.

 _Wow_ , she thought. Then, _Emanuel was right._ She watched him stand on the podium, with Viktor flanking him like a silver shadow—the spot below was curiously empty. _Performance really does make or break you._

“ _I’m going to try and win the next Grand Prix final with Viktor! Thank you for your continued support._ ”

 _I’m going to try too_ , she promised, to the invisible specter of Yuuri Katsuki that had taken up residence in her conscience _._ She set her elbows over crossed legs, put her head in her hands and thought; raised her eyes, looked at him again. _Eros. Desire. What_ do _I want?_

It was times like these that made her wish she had other skaters to talk to—after three years off the grid, though, her options were limited. Anyone at her parents’ rink was right out, and…well, to put it lightly, she’d rather dive onto a live grenade than sent that particular message to Otabek. _Hey, sorry for ghosting on you for three years. You wanna talk about our feelings?_

In fact, it was probably best to not think about him at all.

Which left her with nobody.

_Unless…_

On a hunch, Esther checked through her contacts—incredibly enough, his was still there, probably left due to an oversight, or some sentimental value—there it was, under the I’s.

_Should I?_

_No. Don’t be weird. It’s been two and a half years. This might not even be his number anymore. What if he got a new one, and you text some stranger? It’s, like, two in the morning over there—oh, hell, I guess we’re doing this._

 

Esther tossed her phone to the bedspread, buried her face in her hands and groaned. _Slick._

She resolved to get up and do _something_ , if only to keep from thinking about it for the next five hours—she ended up at the sink, where she washed all the dishes that had yet to be attended to, dried them and put them up. She started next on the dusting. _God, you know it’s bad when you start dusting._ If Emanuel knew her procrastination-cleaning for what it was, he didn’t say anything; whenever she cast suspicious looks his way, he was always looking studiously at his book.

She had just finished remaking her bed, sometime after four in the afternoon, when her phone buzzed on the bedside table. Esther leapt across the freshly-straightened comforter and looked at the message preview on the screen.

 

Esther hurriedly tapped out her reply.

 

She lunged for her laptop, earning a wary look from Suie. “Okay, let’s see. Yes, connect address book.” She scrolled through to the I’s, and found a green dot next to _Music Man_. With a small chuckle, she scrolled over the little green button, and hesitated, trembling faintly with nerves. Okay. Nothing to be afraid of, just…

The call tone started up. Esther jumped. _Music Man is calling._ Reflexively, she pressed the _accept call_ button, and tried to catch her breath as the picture gradually blurred into view.

“Esther?” his head tilted into the picture, presumably as he adjusted his laptop screen—and that was Leo de la Iglesia, all right. “Hey! It really is you.”

She couldn’t help but smile, swallowing down the sudden, silly rush of emotion. He was just an old acquaintance—but one intrinsically connected to skating, and until recently, that had been something that she hadn’t allowed herself to even think about. He was just an old acquaintance, but he seemed… _happy_ to see her, as if such a thing was possible.

Then again, he had always been an almost unfairly kind, unnaturally welcoming person. It might only be his nature, but…she could appreciate it all the same.

“Yeah. I guess I’ve been off the grid for a while,” Esther acknowledged him with a small, humorless chuckle. “I’m not taking you from anything, am I?” He looked like he was dressed in an old shirt and basketball shorts, laid out on his bed like he had nowhere to be, but you never knew about these things.

He shook his head, scattering his hair. “No way. It’s my day off.” There was a notebook sitting by his elbow, phone and earbuds piled on top like a coiled snake. Leo settled onto his elbows, feet kicking absently at the air behind him. “So, what’s going on?”

Esther took a deep breath. “Okay, so you have to promise not to freak out on me, but…I’m coming back to skating.”

“You are? I _thought_ that’s what it might have been about!” Leo beamed through the screen—after all these years, his energy was still infectious. “There have been some rumors going around.” He waved his phone. “Mostly from Suz and everyone at the Boston rink. They heard from your parents that you’d left home, but they wouldn’t say why, and everybody thought that was a little weird, because most colleges don’t start until at least August, you know? So, there was a lot of speculation that you might’ve left to start training, but nobody could say that you’d showed up at their rink.” He peered around her, frowning. “So, where are you, anyway?”

“Luxembourg. I’m actually going to be skating for them now; I have dual citizenship.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Do you like it there?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s your coach?”

Esther copied Leo and settled onto her stomach. “His name’s Emanuel Adélard. He’s actually French.”

Leo’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Huh. Haven’t heard of him.” Quickly, he brightened again. “But I’m sure I will. Sorry, I got sidetracked. What did you want to talk about? I’m guessing it’s something about skating?”

“It is,” she admitted. “Emanuel wants me to choreograph my free skate, and I _want_ to, but I don’t even know where to start. I haven’t even found the music for it yet.”

Leo looked like he might vibrate out of his skin. “That’s great! I don’t know anybody else in our age group who does their own routines!” He reached back for his notebook, showing her the page. “I’m working on my short program right now.”

“So, when you do a routine, where do you usually start from?”

“Hmm.” Leo set the notebook aside. “Usually, I start with a song. Sometimes, I’ll have elements or a sequence in mind, but I can’t really get going until I know what the music is.”

Esther nodded. _That sounds about like me._

“You said you’re having trouble finding music, though?”

“I think I’m just overwhelmed. There’s so much to choose from—I’ve never done this before, and now I have absolute creative freedom. I’ve gone from nothing to everything overnight.”

“Yeah. That can be a little daunting.” Leo stuck his tongue out in concentration. _Oh, he still does that,_ she thought, with a startled smile. “Do you have a theme?”

“Yeah. It’s rebirth.”

“Hm. And you’ve probably already thought about that.”

“Only until my head hurts.”

He laughed; it was a light, musical sound. “Don’t do that! Okay. Well…how about this. You remember the camp we met at?”

Esther groaned, dropping her face to the mattress. “I try not to.”

“Aw, no, I just meant the skating.” She looked back up, and willed away her flush. “I remember, you chose The Firebird, by Igor Stravinsky, because you’d always wanted to skate to it.”

She _did_ remember that— _that was almost five years ago, how does_ he _remember?_

“You chose a song that had meaning to you. You know, I was actually surprised you didn’t use that routine in the next season. I thought it was really good.”

Esther glanced at the wall, unwilling to tell him of all the times she’d asked _can I skate to The Firebird this year_ and her mother had replied _you’ll skate to Tchaikovsky; real Russian music, not this Stravinsky_ , or something similar. “You…really thought so?”

“Yeah!” he replied, with enough vehemence to quash all but the most persistent of her doubts. “You know, the camp puts up a recording of the exhibition every year. You could probably find it if you searched YouTube for it.” He looked hopefully at her. “Does that help at all?”

Esther’s head was swimming, suddenly full of an old siren song, calling her to hear it once more. “It really does, actually. I think I might know where to go from here.”

Leo’s smile was _dazzling_. “That’s great! I’m glad I could help.”

“Thanks, for…taking the time to talk to me, after three years.”

“No problem!” he insisted. “Hey, Esther. I’m glad you’re coming back. Will you be competing in the Grand Prix?”

“That’s the plan.”

“I hope we see each other there, then.”

Esther lowered her eyes, self-conscious of the small smile that stole over her. “I hope so too. Thanks again, Leo.”

“I told you, it’s no problem. Text me anytime. It sounds like you’ve got a lead now, so I’ll let you go chase it. Good luck!”

“Good luck to you too,” Esther nodded at his notebook, and Leo grinned.

“Thanks, Esther. See you at the Grand Prix!” he held up one hand, showing fingers crossed, and waved with the other. Esther waved back and hung up, but the smile stayed with her even after he disappeared from the screen.

_No wonder I fell for him._

Once upon a time, Leo de la Iglesia had been the first great love of her life. She’d had plenty of others, of course; her obligatory infatuation with Viktor Nikiforov, and those crushes one develops on a skater they see at a competition—never spoken to, only watched from afar, and, in the end, like ships passing in the night—but what she’d felt for Leo had been achingly, terrifyingly _real_ , so much so that her fourteen-year-old heart had felt, at times, that she would die if he didn’t feel the same. He was kind and smart and funny, _painfully_ handsome; he sang and played the guitar, and encouraged her with a smile when she raised her voice to join in with them, lifted his eyebrows in delight when her alto rang clear as a bell. He led them peppily through their exercises; showed them how to skate to the music with the routines he himself had designed.

He was everything she could’ve dreamed of in a boy.

The rational part of her, of course, knew that there was little chance of that. He was nearly a year older, mature and _cool_ and _far_ too good-looking for her. Still, the youthful hope in her heart had reminded her of the _small_ possibility that he just _might_ be her soulmate, and convinced her (aided by the other girls, who’d giggled and pushed her his way) to approach him halfway through the camp and confess her deepest feelings to him.

Leo had never been anything but terribly compassionate, and had let her down about as gently as anyone _could_ be let down. Esther had still left hurriedly afterwards to cry in the bathroom, and despair of ever looking him in the eye again. But Leo had been the picture of a gentleman throughout the rest of the camp, and at the end, gave her the second-tightest hug of her life when she thanked him for being her friend.

They’d parted ways, but stayed in touch, and Esther held on to the memory of her feelings, let them fade into a passing fondness that still struck her whenever she looked at him.

She’d never made fun of Juliet Capulet again.

His advice had been good, though. _Another point for intuition._ She opened Chrome, humming the familiar tune as she typed in _Colorado Springs juniors summer camp exhibition 2012._ Indeed, it was the first result. _Crap, what order did we perform in again?_ She hadn’t gone last, she remembered that much—it had been arranged by age, and her parents had complained, when she, upon her return to Boston, asked them if they had watched the video; _they should’ve closed with yours, everything after it was underwhelming._

She clicked the thumbnail. Thankfully, the description provided helpful links for specific performances: _There I am. 41:29-44:13: Esther Markowitz-Wagner; “The Firebird” (Igor Stravinsky)._

It took her to the point where she entered the rink, skated to her starting position, and stopped to wait for the music. Her costume could be described as a classic female figure skater’s look—a red leotard and skirt with flashy costume jewels around the bodice; white skates, hair pulled tightly into a bun; bright, fiery makeup.

The soft sound of the horn cued up. _That’s right. It was the finale._ Esther watched her younger self begin with delicate, serpentine spirals, spinning to the flutter of the flute, picking up speed as the music swelled, as the orchestra joined in.

A triple axel, just as the brass thundered in. Double loop, triple toe, a line of butterfly leaps into a combination spin.

_Oh._

_I was pretty good._

She looked so _different_ from all of her other performance videos. Perhaps it was the way she moved with the music, like it was a part of her, like it was the blood in her veins. There was something about it that was so _alive_ , that left her breathless as the image of her younger self, frozen in time, finished with a scratch spin and her face up as she raised her arms to the sky.

It was a Junior’s routine. There were things about it that were amateurish, that she had since refined. But what it was, its very soul, _that_ was what she had been searching for.

“I have my music,” she announced, exiting to the front room. Emanuel looked up from his book, removing his reading glasses. “I’m going to skate to the finale of Stravinsky’s Firebird.”

“That’s fitting,” he said.

“I’ve wanted to do it for a long time.” Esther folded her arms. “So…I’ll let you know when I’m ready to show it to you.”

Emanuel nodded, trying and failing to bite down on a smile. “Very well.”

From there, her work was day and night. At the rink, she cycled through endless permutations of movements to the music. If the music wasn’t playing, she was humming it, nodding along to its inaudible tune. At home, she scribbled down what had worked, what hadn’t, what to try the next day. Her notepad went everywhere with her, in case something struck while she was out.

 _I’m not good at doing things for myself._ Lift your arms to the horn, open your eyes. _What was it that Dr. Patel said? I’m petrified of being selfish._ First steps—choreographic sequence. _Coming back to skating is the first decision I’ve ever made for me._ Realize that you’re alive.

The strings are coming in. The flute flutters: double axel, double loop. The music swells. _This is my moment._ Triple axel.

_I chose this._

The entrance of the brass shakes her bones. She takes off: for a moment, nothing can touch her. Her blade strikes the ice, she whirls around, watches the rink revolve around her.

 _It’s my rebirth, but that was only the beginning._ Triple Lutz, with the beat of the drum, triple flip; together, triple Lutz, triple salchow, butterfly leap into the spin; the trumpets are beginning to ring.

 _I’m the only one who can show the world what I’m truly made of._ The orchestra echoes with its full splendor. Now, the step sequence, from one end to another, curling like a serpent, like a flame.

 _But it’s not just me._ Crossover. _I’m not alone in this._ The theme is echoing, building. Split jump, camel spin. _I never have been._ The cymbals crash—triple axel.

_Jay. Emanuel. Leo. Yuuri Katsuki._

She’s spinning, dancing, like a blaze of light on the ice. The music burns out in a brilliant, triumphant note, reverberating in the very marrow of her bones. Her face is turned to the sky, her arms are outstretched, reaching ever-higher.

_I will do the impossible._

Silence took the rink, informing Esther, for the first time, of how hard she was panting. It was uniquely draining, in a way that left her muscles aching and her heart pounding, fearful and unaccustomed to how it had been left on the ice, and oh, how it squeezed at the cold.

But when she lowered her arms at last, turned to look for Emanuel where he was standing, she could see the broadness of his smile. He pushed off to approach her, and she found herself hurrying to meet him, seeking shelter from how exposed she felt. Emanuel all but crashed into her, squeezing her so tightly, he nearly forced the air from her lungs. “ _That_ ,” he said, thickly, “is what I’ve been waiting to see.”

 

* * *

 

After that, time seemed to pick up speed. May passed away with barely a whisper, and June raced by in its wake: the time for preliminary assignments quickly approached. Through the last week of the month, Esther felt none of the anxiety that she might have expected. Entertainingly, Emanuel seemed to grow more restless, the closer they got to turning the calendar over. “What if they come on Saturday?” he kept saying.

“Then you’ll tell me after the sun goes down,” she replied, giving him her steeliest look over her teacup.

On Thursday, Emanuel checked his phone and went suddenly very still. Esther put down the tomatoes she’d pulled from the fridge—her arms were too weak, suddenly, for anything substantial. “Is it…?”

“It’s here,” he looked up. “You’ve been assigned to Skate America, the first event: in Chicago, from the twenty-first to the twenty-third of October—and the sixth event, the Rostelecom Cup: in Moscow, from the twenty-fifth to the twenty-seventh of November.”

Esther let out the breath she’d been holding, in fear of missing even a single word, and leaned on the counter. _Holy shit. It’s really happening now._

Seconds later, her phone buzzed in her back pocket.

 

“What are the men’s assignments?” Esther pocketed her phone and went to Emanuel’s side, peering at his screen.

“I don’t know. They just sent me yours. Wait, why do you want to look at the men’s assignments?”

“I got it.” She opened Twitter, and immediately forgot about what she’d gone there to do when she spotted the number of notifications awaiting her. “What the _hell_?”

“What?” It was Emanuel’s turn to look over her shoulder.

“I’ve got a _shit_ ton of people tagging me,” she scrolled through. “Are you really coming back—well, no shit, they don’t give out Grand Prix assignments for show.” Her eyebrows shot into her hairline. “I’ve got sports networks asking me for comment.”

Emanuel swiftly put a hand up. “Don’t say _anything_ ; the Union wants a press conference.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, two o’clock in the afternoon.”

 _A press conference? Yeesh, now it’s getting_ really _official._ Esther sighed. “As long as I’m on time to service.”

“You will be,” he assured. “Wear something professional. And don’t worry too much.”

“Hm, don’t say that. It’ll make me worry.”

Emanuel chuckled, strode closer, and put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re going to the Grand Prix.”

“I’m going to the Grand Prix,” she repeated, smiling. “You think they’ll give me a cool jacket?”

 

* * *

 

The press conference was held in an empty room at the rink—Esther watched from the side door as the room filled with reporters and cameras, and glanced at the middle seat on the table that headed the room. It was empty, as was the one to her right (she assumed that was Emanuel’s); the others were occupied by suited officials, the three people primarily in charge of the Luxembourgish Skating Union, and a few others that she guessed were probably from the ISU.

“All you have to do is answer the questions they ask you,” Emanuel reminded her, as she stepped back from the curtain.

“I know.” She fidgeted with the sleeve of her blazer. “Is this on straight?”

Emanuel tugged at it once. “Yes.”

_Cool. I can at least do this looking presentable._

“All right, they’re waving us in.” Emanuel nudged gently between her shoulders, and Esther started walking, tuning out the low chatter, even as it subsided for the flashing of several cameras. Emanuel pulled out her chair for her and pushed her in before unbuttoning his jacket, tugging his trouser legs up, and taking his place beside her. Esther braced herself for them all to start talking at once, but a flurry of pens rose into the air. _Oh, I’m supposed to pick one?_ There were so many of them, all wearing sensible suit colors—

Emanuel pointed to a man in the front row, nodding at him. Esther shot him a grateful look, before directing her attention to the press.

“How long now have you been training to reenter skating? Was it a calculated choice on your part?”

“Uh, about three months, now. And, as for whether it was calculated…” _Oh boy, here we go. Do I tell it straight?_ “…I saw what needed to be done, and I did it. There was no need for me to think about it.” Esther folded her hands on the table, sat up straight and tried to look official as the questions came.

“There was never clarification about your retirement in 2014. Were you injured?”

Her breath caught. Emanuel gave her a concerned look, but she shook her head at him. _No, I have to own this_. “I wasn’t injured. I had a rough season, and at the time, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I realized that I have a lot more to offer the Senior division, and I’m grateful that I have this chance to try again.”

“Do you have any concerns about your ability to compete against skaters who haven’t taken the last two seasons off?”

 _Shameless, aren’t they?_ “Do you?” she asked, without really thinking— _oh shit,_ she thought, for a moment, but she got a decent chuckle, and several reporters took down a note.

“Your father, Gabriel Wagner, previously skated for Luxembourg. Is he currently involved in your training?”

That took her aback. In hindsight, she supposed she really should have expected that. _He was_ _their last skater._

_I’m going to be better._

“No,” she said, probably with more force than what was needed. “My parents and I don’t have a working relationship at this time.” _They have no idea._ “Emanuel Adélard is my coach and choreographer, and he’s sitting right beside me. I want to emphasize that this is a new start for my career.” The cameras were flashing. “This year I’m going to reach new heights, ones that I barely dared to dream of before. I’m proud to represent Luxembourg, and I’ll bring home gold from the Grand Prix final.”

 

* * *

 

A few weeks later, a shipment of boxes and other assorted parcels arrived from Boston. “What’s all of this?” Emanuel asked, when he came across her slicing open the first package.

Esther reached in, and withdrew paperwork for what had to be every bank account in her name. “Severance pay.”

The boxes were full of all the important paperwork a legal adult might need—medical records, birth certificate, educational certifications. The other boxes were full of the things she hadn’t brought in her suitcase—books, DVDs, the remainder of her closet, her small army of instrument cases.

“Good Lord,” Emanuel muttered, looking over it all, probably wondering where they were going to put it. “It’s as if—”

“It’s like they’re trying to get rid of anything that might remind them they had a daughter,” she chuckled, a brief, humorless sound. The final box, which she recognized before she even opened, contained the cases with all of her Junior and Novice medals, down to the very first award she’d ever won: a medal from a local contest held at the Frog Pond. The ribbon had faded with age. Esther ran a thumb over the worn face, remembering how they had opened their arms to her as she skated out to the edge, wearing it proudly. “Mom’s probably pissed,” she murmured. “If she was thinking straight she would’ve kept these.” _I would never have gotten them without her; that’s what she would’ve said._

She didn’t have to turn to know Emanuel was wearing his troubled look. “They’re letting me go, though. To be honest, there was a part of me that was afraid they’d file a lawsuit. Accuse you of kidnapping. Something like that.” She turned, but there was no trace of mirth in his eyes. Floundering, she looked back down at her medal, tried to will away the trembling in her hands. “Help me out here, Coach. How do you get disowned?”

Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor beside her.  “What’s this?” he nodded at the dull, faux-brass medallion in her hands.

“This?” puzzled, she passed it to him. “The Boston Commons Frog Pond Little Spinners. It’s a contest they hold every week during the wintertime—more about letting all the kids skate together and show off what they can do. My parents had just started to train me. I came with my very best figure eights and finished it off with a shotgun spin.” She shook her head. “I didn’t really understand what I was getting into at that point. Before I felt the pressure to do well, and I could just enjoy it, and be happy when they told me I was good at it…”

Emanuel reached into the box. “Your gold from Junior Worlds? And these are…”

“Gold from the Grand Prix Final,” she rubbed at the back of her neck.

“And the NHK Trophy, and the Rostelecom Cup, and the American Nationals.”

“Yup,” she sighed. “I hit a grand slam that year. I guess my parents figured I was ready for Seniors. Everyone was expecting great things from me.”

Emanuel shook his head. “Your parents may have. The Junior and Senior divisions are vastly different from one another. They rushed you in at fifteen; they could have given you another season to find your footing. Instead, you were forced into competition with women with many years on you in age and experience. They put you into the same circuit as Nadya Voronina and expected you to succeed.” He scowled deeply and replaced the frames. Something deep within her eased. Though they were arguably her greatest achievements, the truest proof of her ability, she hadn’t wanted to look at them either.

Instead, she reached further back into the box, withdrawing a different case. “Which one is this?” Emanuel asked her.

“My bronze,” she said, simply, “From 2012.” She swept a hand over the surface, clearing the pane of dust to better see it. She turned to him. “I want to put this one up.”

Slowly, he took it from her. “Just this one?”

Esther nodded. “It’s the one that means the most to me.” She glanced at the Duck Pond medal, and returned it to the box. _No amount of wishing for the good old days is going to take me back to the start._ “It’s the reason I was able to meet you.”

She’d never really bared her heart like that. She avoided his eyes, at first, but finally, his lack of reply forced her to turn. He had a strange, softly stunned look on his face; his lips parted and his eyes glimmered. His hands tightened on the edges of the frame, and he looked down at the bronze in its case. “Of course. We can put this one up.”

And so they did: on the hall that led to the back, where their rooms were. It was just visible from the front, and it would catch the light from the lamps in the living room.

“Hey, Coach,” Esther spoke, as they stood looking at it, side by side. “You don’t think…I was getting ahead of myself, back at the press conference? When I said I’d bring home gold?”

Emanuel smiled, but he kept his eyes fixed ahead. “I think everyone makes those promises.”

_But does everyone mean them?_

“Luxembourg is sending a skater to the Grand Prix for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. You’ve already made them proud.” He turned to her at last. “Do you want to bring home gold?”

_Gabriel Wagner made them proud. I want to give them a champion._

“Yes.”

He nodded, and looked again to the frame on the wall. “That’s good,” he murmured, “That’s very good.”

 

* * *

 

Her eighteenth birthday came and went. Esther didn’t mention it—training kept her busy, and otherwise, she’d never really celebrated it. On the morning of July fourteenth, however, she entered the kitchen to find a bouquet of larkspurs sitting on the table, and Emanuel standing by to wish her _bon anniversaire_. She’d hugged him, then, and thought briefly of how it was the first one they’d shared where she hadn’t been in the middle of an emotional breakdown. She couldn’t help but think of how she hadn’t been the hugging type, before, but maybe, _just_ maybe, it had everything to do with what her life had looked like, before.

“I’ve made some arrangements,” he said, above her head. “Your friend Jay will be coming to see you in Chicago.”

She wasn’t sure why it was that—not the _happy birthday_ message she would receive later, from Leo, or the call from Jay, where she apologized for keeping it a secret, but it was all so that they could surprise her, and she was so excited to come see Esther skate in person—that made her eyes brim suddenly with tears. “Thanks, Coach,” she said, quietly.

_Maybe the best families are the ones you make yourself._

“Happy Bastille Day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Presenting: the ladies’ singles competitors for the 2016-17 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/post/163745068289/presenting-the-ladies-singles-competitors-for)


	4. Warming Up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapter were originally meant to be one chapter. After it ended up twice as long as my normal chapter, I decided to split them into two. Due to my selection of what I believe was the most natural separation point, this one ended up a little shorter than average; the next is a bit longer.

The rest of the summer seemed to pass in a haze of training. As the weather cooled and the leaves began to fall, the High Holidays only lent more of a sense of closure to her last days before the beginning of the season. Her return was a concept still, threatening, by the hour, to manifest into reality. Esther honed her programs to a cutting edge and spent what few spare moments she had sitting still, trying to process it.

 _I’m really going back._ She had made the decision months ago, but the chill of the rink, the noise of the crowd—it seemed those would remain distant until the moment she took the ice.

On the evening before they left for Chicago, Emanuel called her out to the living room. Esther left her packing behind and joined him in the front. “I have something for you,” he said, and set a white garment box on the table.

Esther gave him a suspicious look, but she pulled the top off. “What? I actually get a jacket?”

It was a beautiful, vibrant blue. The logo of the _Union Luxembourgeoise de Patinage_ was embroidered on the right breast; the flag was on the left. The accompanying pants were a simple black, bearing the Union’s logo on the right upper leg. “I was joking, you know, I didn’t think there’d be one of these in play until I made Pyeongchang.”

“There’s a windbreaker, too,” he commented, laying it over the table. “This country hasn’t had a representative in years, and while I’m sure they wouldn’t be heartbroken to send you to Pyeongchang, I would rather we focused on the road already before us.”

Esther didn’t reply at first, just trailed her fingers over the fabric in thought. “It’s weird. Everyone at the synagogue told me they’d be cheering me on back home. Somebody recognized me at the grocery store the other day and wished me luck. I think the days of our little two-man operation are over.”

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“I don’t know. I kind of liked it; you and me against the rest of the world.”

Emanuel chuckled at her. “You should get some rest. We have an early flight.”

Esther collected her garments. “I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to wait it out and sleep on the plane. Tomorrow is going to be one of those thirty-four hour days.”

“Well, I have to drive us to the airport, so I’ll be getting what hours I can in a _bed_.”

“Are you a nervous flier?” she teased, lingering at the mouth of the hallway.

“ _No_ , I’ve just never been able to sleep in one of those tin cans.” He shooed her off. “I don’t care _what_ you do, so long as you’re sufficiently rested before the program, but whatever it is, do it _quietly_.”

Staying up was no object—her pre-travel jitters did the job for her quite well. The early hours of the morning dawned cold and wet. Esther donned her comfiest airplane attire and pulled her windbreaker on over it. She and Emanuel brought their luggage to the door—one suitcase each, their carry-ons, and the third suitcase, which contained her costumes and skates. Their final check performed, Esther knelt to scratch Suie behind the ears. “Mrs. Schmit will look after you while we’re gone,” she told him. “Be good, all right? I’ll be back in a few days.” He sat and watched them as they pulled their bags out the door.

They proceeded down the stairs, loaded the car. “I hope he doesn’t think we’re abandoning him.”

“He won’t.”

They spoke little, while they made their way to the airport. The sun hadn’t yet risen, and it felt like a bad omen, to profane the stillness with extraneous words. It wasn’t until after they cleared security, when Emanuel excused himself to a conveniently-placed café and returned with two cups of tea, that Esther said something. “Ugh, I don’t feel yet like I’m gonna pass out, but I can see there from here.”

“It’s a short flight,” he said, passing her a paper bag which, she found, contained two pastries. “The first one, at any rate. After the first leg, we have an hour layover in Zurich. If you can hold out until the second flight, you can have eight hours uninterrupted. The Danish is yours.” She passed him the croissant. “ _I’m_ going to have a decent croissant before I’m consigned to America.”

The food gave her a second wind, but by the time they were boarding in Switzerland, she was tiring again. She was asleep almost immediately after they were in the air, and she woke up over New York, her head lolling on Emanuel’s shoulder. Thankfully, he was absorbed in his book, and made no mention of it, neither then nor after they began their descent. When the doors opened, they were among the first ones out.

Esther walked into Chicago O’Hare, alert but internally aware that she was out of her time zone. She stuck by Emanuel’s side until they reached customs: there, signs heralded separate lines for citizens and foreigners, the former of which was moving significantly faster.

“I’ll meet you at the baggage claim,” she promised, as they went their separate ways. She took her place in line, ears buzzing with so much English after such a long time. _God, has it really been six months since I’ve been here?_ Her life in Luxembourg seemed like an eternity and a blink of an eye all at once. She made it through the winding queue, nodded perfunctorily at the agent’s “welcome back,” got her passport stamped, and moved along. On the other side, she peered at the non-citizens line, tried to see if she could spot Emanuel, but he was nowhere in sight. _Oh well, off to the baggage claim._

None of the terminals were displaying a Swiss Air flight yet. Esther settled in to wait, pulling her phone out and tapping absently at her apps. Ever since she’d officially announced her return, her follower counts across social media had skyrocketed. She took a quick picture for Snapchat, swiping through the location filters until she found one for Chicago. She had just finished typing, _come on babe, why don’t we paint the town_ and sending it to her story when a voice popped up before her.

“Hello? Miss? Are you a skater?” Esther looked up, eyebrows raising—there was a girl in front of her, wearing leggings and a shirt that said, entertainingly, _the bags under my eyes are designer._ She certainly had bags, and her hair was caught up in a messy black braid that was slowly coming undone. She looked, in short, like she’d been on an even longer flight than Esther. She took in the logos on Esther’s jacket like a cat sighting its prey. “You are! Oh, thank _God_ , I really need somebody’s help and I didn’t know who to ask, but _you_ know what I’m going through—”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Esther cut in, quickly, nodding as the girl paused to take a breath. “What’s going on?”

“I just got in from Bangkok,” she said. “Well, technically, from Hong Kong, but I came from Bangkok—I’m Phichit Chulanont’s costume designer. Phichit Chulanont. From Thailand.”

“I know where Bangkok is.” Esther prayed, briefly, for strength. “What’s the problem?” she asked, again.

“I lost Phichit,” she said, despairing. “And my luggage still hasn’t come in. His costumes are in there, and if we don’t find them he’ll have to skate _naked_.” Her eyes, bulged, suddenly, in horror. “You have to help me.”

 _Oh, boy._ “Okay, don’t worry. I’m sure he just went to the bathroom, or something. You can text him and figure out where he is. As for your luggage, uh—what airline did you come in on?”

“Cathay Pacific,” she replied, rubbing at her eyes. _Please, God, do not cry on me._

“Oh, I’ve flown them before,” Esther nodded, _keep the conversation going, right,_ “They’re great. Look, here’s a Cathay Pacific desk. Let’s go see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

The girl stuck close by her all the way to the counter. “Hello,” Esther greeted the employee behind the desk, “My friend here says she just flew in from—Hong Kong, was it? Yes, and she still hasn’t gotten her baggage. Would you know anything about that?” She stood by as the girl was asked for her flight number, and directed to one of the conveyer belts. “They’re just unloading the last of the luggage now. If your suitcases don’t turn up, you can come back here and we’ll do everything we can to assist you.”

Esther followed her to the appropriate belt, dispensing various assurances (“I’m sure they didn’t lose your luggage. Just give it a few minutes, it’s coming. You’ll find him; I don’t think he’d go off by himself.”). In the meantime, she checked Instagram— _Phichit Chulanont from Thailand, that’s the guy with the really cute selfies_ —it was easy enough to track him down (he was verified), and spot a recent post. Esther turned and peered through the door to the terminal. From the looks of his surroundings in the photo, he was just on the other side.

A delighted gasp redirected her attention. “There it is!” Her companion grabbed two matching purple suitcases coming off the belt, hauling them off to sit beside her.

“I, uh, found your skater.” Esther showed her the photo, and the girl huffed and put her hands on her hips.

“So he saw Guang Hong and ran off to say hi, and left me _alone_ in this _big-ass airport!_ ”

“Uh.” Esther blinked. “Yeah. From the looks of it, he’s right through there. Probably waiting for you, if I had to guess. Hey, I don’t think I ever—” As if one case of mood whiplash wasn’t enough, Esther was suddenly given a very tight hug.

“Thank you _so_ much! I owe you one!” she seized her bags, and took off towards the door before Esther could so much as ask for her name.

A few moments later, Emanuel arrived behind her. “I think our flight is unloading back there.” He indicated a carousel closer to the arrival wing.

“Oh.” Esther turned, tugging at her ponytail. “How long have you been…?”

“I just got through.” He frowned. “Why?”

She shook her head. “No…nothing. Let’s just get our bags.”

They got a cab from the airport and were on their way to the hotel within fifteen minutes. “This traffic is ridiculous,” Emanuel muttered, under his breath. “Does no one know how to drive in this country?”

“It’s city traffic,” Esther replied, “You should see Boston drivers.”

“I would prefer not to.”

Their driver glanced into the rearview mirror. “So, is your Dad visiting?”

Esther gaped, thrown into a sudden confusion. “Uh…” It took her a moment to realize that Emanuel, despite having been in America for close to an hour now, was still refusing to speak English—Esther, having already mentally made the switch, had heard him in French and answered in English. It was enough to make her head spin. _God, these time zones are really screwing with me._ “Yeah,” she blurted, in her desperation to say something, _anything_ , realizing, too late, the question she was answering.

The cab driver didn’t seem fazed, not even by the disjointed nature of her response. Emanuel, on the other hand, looked almost pleased. _Oh, laugh it up_.

“That’s nice. He’s from France?”

“He is,” said Emanuel, in English, still smiling.

The rest of the ride was mercifully short. Esther groaned as the cab drove away and scrubbed a hand over her face. “Oh, a Hilton,” she observed, once she opened her eyes again. “Of course. It wouldn’t be a stay in America without a Hilton, would it?”

“Or overcooked sausage.”

“The sausage is your problem.”

“Or bagged eggs.”

“We can just eat breakfast somewhere else, you know.”

“Or absolutely pitiful coffee.”

“Let’s just check in.”

“Or terrible croissants…”

Esther shook her head and led the way to the front desk.

Check-in went easily—for the most part, Esther tuned out the conversation between Emanuel and the receptionist, glancing over her shoulder and scanning for any signs of other skaters. She couldn’t see anyone she recognized, but it wasn’t as if she had a great eye for these things. _With my luck, they’ve all probably checked in and found their new best friends for life…_

“When does Jay get in?” she asked, as they started towards the elevator.

“Later this afternoon,” Emanuel replied. “Her flight lands at four thirty. I thought we would retrieve her and find someplace marginally acceptable for dinner.”

Esther stifled a small chuckle. “I’m sure there’ll be something.”

They had adjoining rooms on the eighth floor. “I plan on resting for a few hours,” he said, standing in the threshold of the door that stood between them. “Let me know if you’re going anywhere. Otherwise, I’ll knock in the afternoon so we can fetch Jay. If you need anything, I’ll be right here on the other side.” With that, he closed the door and left Esther alone. She took the opportunity to shower and change—briefly, she considered resting, got as far as reclining on one of the beds, tapping at her phone and thinking about how Suie was doing, when a knock came at the door.

She frowned, rising and crossing the carpet. “Emanuel?” _Why would he come through the hallway door, though?_

Esther opened the door, revealing the girl from the airport, and her companion: the most blinding megawatt smile she’d ever seen.

“Hi! I’m—”

“Phichit Chulanont,” Esther said, with him. “Right. I, uh, I follow you. On Instagram.”

Phichit, who made the backwards ball cap look entirely in fashion, somehow gave her a smile bigger than the first. “You do? See, I told you,” he elbowed his friend, airport girl, “You’re a great judge of character.”

Esther pointed to her. “You’re…”

“Chuenchai!” she said, at the same time as Esther concluded: “…the girl from the baggage claim.”

Chuenchai looked horribly embarrassed—and also, like she’d had a shower and maybe a brief nap since Esther had seen her last. “I’m really sorry I never told you my name; I was really stressed out. I didn’t realize it until I’d already run away.”

“Uh, no, that’s okay,” Esther waved her off, chuckling nervously, “Jet lag makes us all weird. I’m having enough trouble as it is, and I didn’t have trouble finding my luggage.”

“Did she really say I’d have to skate naked?” Phichit broke in.

“Phichit!” Chuenchai screeched, slapping his arm. Phichit just laughed: the sound was infectious, and in moments, she and Esther were both smiling, until she stiffened with a sudden jolt; a recollection of some long-imbedded etiquette.

“Oh. I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Esther. Although, I guess you probably knew that, if you found me here…” she trailed off, frowning. “Wait. How _did_ you find me?” _Did they see me coming in?_ She had been looking for other skaters’ gear in the lobby, and both of them were in street clothes.

“Your Instagram post!” Phichit wiggled his phone at her: there, sure enough, was the picture she’d put up (the view from her window), just a little more than a half hour ago. “We figured that your window had to be facing _this_ side of the building, and from there we guessed how high up you were and tried different doors until we found you!”

Esther blinked. “Oh. Uh…well, why did you come looking for me?”

Chuenchai clasped her hands in front of her chest. “We wanted to say thank you for helping me, and ask you to come to lunch with us.”

Esther stood in her door, not particularly shocked by anything that had been said, but taken aback all the same. It was a simple question, one she should’ve been able to answer easily, but something about it made her freeze. _I’ve never been invited before._

Suddenly, her senses came back to her. “Yeah, I’d love to. Uh—here, just let me change.” She shut the door and dove for her suitcase, mind racing. _Since when do I get invited places?_ She tugged off her shorts and wriggled into a pair of jeans. _How am I even supposed to do this?_ She checked her hair and fought on her boots and shrugged into her leather jacket. _Oh, stop panicking, you weirdo, you wanted to hang out with the other kids, now it’s finally happening, so just shut up and go with it._ Esther stuffed her room key into one of her wallet’s card slots, and shoved that into her back pocket as she opened the door. “So, where are we going?”

“There’s a Mediterranean place not far from here,” Phichit informed her. He was tapping quickly away at what had to be a group chat, by the frequency of the incoming messages. “Some of the others are coming too.”

“Cool!” _Baby’s first group skater hangout. No big deal._ She pulled her own phone, as they waited for the elevator. _I guess I should tell Emanuel where I’m going…_

 

She slid it away as the elevator arrived for them, _ding_ ing cheerily. “So, Chuenchai—”

“My friends call me Chai!” she chirped.

 _Oh. Are we friends?_ “So…Chai?”

“Yeah?”

“How’d you get to be Phichit’s costume designer?”

“We’ve been best friends since school!” she said, brightly. Phichit just smiled at her, but this was a softer look than the one he’d offered Esther—Chuenchai, absorbed in her recollection, was completely oblivious. “I always liked designing outfits, but sometimes I want to do _crazy_ stuff. And, y’know, I can’t always work that into a line of actual clothes. Designing costumes for him means I get to _really_ test my limits. And, I mean, have you _seen_ some of the stuff they come up with for men’s costumes in skating? It’s _terrible_! I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it.”

“Hm, that’s true.” Esther had seen many a terrible men’s costume in her day. They were all too frilly, too plain, or some variation on the same horrendously ugly jumpsuit. The only one who hadn’t been consistently terrible was Viktor Nikiforov. _There you go; secret of his success, right there._ “I guess it’s probably worse than the state of women’s costumes. Ours can be pretty boring, but at least they look okay.” She thought of her own, hanging in the closet upstairs, and felt a sudden rush of excitement.

The elevator let them off at the ground floor, and they headed out through the lobby, turning down the street for the nearest L stop.

Esther slid her hands into her pockets. “Do you know who else is coming?”

“Leo and Guang Hong, for sure,” Phichit replied. “I told them to invite the others. We’ll see who shows up.”

“Oh!” Esther nodded, excited and a bit relieved all at once. “Good. I promised Leo I’d see him while I was here.”

“That’s right, you guys know each other! I asked him for details, but he wouldn’t tell me _anything_.”

“Really?” Esther blushed under the pair’s sudden, intense scrutiny. “We met at a summer camp that his rink hosts. I went the summer before I entered Juniors.” She paused. “I’m looking forward to seeing him again.”

Chuenchai sighed. “I just love the friends we make, around the ice. Everyone is scattered across the whole world, but no matter how much distance there is between us, we always find out way back to each other.”

Esther smiled and looked down at her feet. “Yeah.”

The hour was favorable, which meant they got three seats next to each other on the train. “You seem really familiar with America,” Chuenchai observed.

“You, too.”

“Phichit trained in Detroit for a while. I lived there with him! What about you?”

“I haven’t actually lived in Luxembourg for long. I was born and raised here.”

“ _Here_?”

“Not _here_ , exactly—in Boston, I mean.”

“Oh, that’s where Worlds is this season!” Phichit chimed in.

“Is it?” Esther did her best to squash the impulse to start worrying now.

“Yeah.” Phichit glanced back at his phone, and angled it towards her. “I like your pictures! You’re one of those places-and-things photographers.”

She fielded a bashful smile to the floor of the train car. Phichit had caught the sun, somehow, in himself: just being around him was warming. “Thanks.”

“I think you could stand to be in more pictures, though.” He held the phone out before them, and Chuenchai crowded, instinctively, by his other side. “Smile!”

Esther felt strange, even as she watched him pronounce it a great picture and start swiping through filters. These were the kinds of pictures she saw after the fact, that she hesitated to like because it’d be weird that everyone was there and she wasn’t…if she _was_ in them, she existed on the edges. Oddly enough, she was smiling. Her usual discomfort around new people had, seemingly, vanished. It was as if the entire narrative of her young life was being reversed before her eyes.

“You guys,” she said, softly. They both paused, looking expectantly at her. “Thanks.”

She didn’t remember, afterward, what they said in response—something about of course, it was their pleasure—it didn’t matter. She just smiled.

The walk to the restaurant was brisk, but the weather hadn’t turned completely miserable yet. It was a good time of year, in Esther’s opinion, even if Chicago had far too few trees for her to appreciate the foliage. She wondered if the leaves in Luxembourg would start changing before she came home.

They came upon their destination—a small, trendy café with clean faux-bamboo floors and wall-to-wall windows. They spotted Leo and Guang Hong long before they came to the door, and waved through the glass. She locked eyes with Leo, and felt a grin coming on, the sudden adrenaline-thud of her pulse. “We brought Esther!” Chuenchai announced, as they came through the door. Esther passed them by, crossing the floor in two strides. Leo met her halfway, catching her up in an almost crushing hug.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said, letting her go and holding her at arm’s length with a small, incredulous laugh. “Look at you!”

“Look at _you!_ ” Esther echoed, beaming. For a moment, it felt like she might start crying, but the feeling faded.

“I don’t look _that_ different, do I?”

Esther reached up and tousled his hair. “You grew this out.”

“You saw me over Skype!”

“ _And_ you got taller.”

He snorted. “Not by much.” Leo wrapped his arm around her shoulders, bringing her to the unoccupied chair at his left. Guang Hong was on his other side: she got her first good look up close and realized he had freckles.

“Hey, I’m Esther.” She replied, holding out her hand for the shaking. “Nice to meet you.”

“Is anyone else coming?” Phichit took the seat across from her, and Chuenchai popped in on her other side.

Leo shook his head. “I don’t think so. Suz and Olivia are off doing their own thing.”

“Suz? Like, Suzanne Jackson?” Esther looked up from the menu she’d started to peruse. “She’s here?”

Leo looked at her, a little puzzled. “Yeah.”

“I asked Yu if she wanted to come with us, but she wouldn’t leave her room,” Guang Hong supplied. “She’s too busy watching competitor footage.”

“Really?” Phichit looked about their table, like he couldn’t believe its size. “None of the other guys, either?”

Leo shook his head. “Nope. I tried to get Otabek to come, but…you know how he is.”

Esther was still turning over _Suz_ when _Otabek_ hit her like a freight train. “Otabek’s here?” she blurted, bringing down the attention of the entire table.

“That’s right. You guys were rinkmates, weren’t you?” Leo pulled his phone. “I should tell him you’re here; maybe he’ll change his mind—”

“No,” she said, quickly. “I mean…” _Shit, shit shit shit._ “Don’t worry about it. It’s like you said, you know how he is. He’s probably busy.”

Leo still looked puzzled, but he stowed his phone again. “All right, if you say so.” He gave her a curious, sidelong look. “Did you really not know he was here?”

“No!” she set her menu down. “My coach told me I wasn’t allowed to look at the assignments. He didn’t want me psyching myself out.”

“Oh,” Leo nodded. “That explains it, then. It’s kind of weird, though, isn’t it? You’d have to figure out who you were skating against eventually.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” _I’m beginning to see it his way._ “Uh…who is here, anyway? For ladies’ singles?”

“My rinkmate, Yu,” said Guang Hong. “It’s her Senior debut too.”

“This is your first year? I had no idea. Good luck to you.”

Guang Hong smiled at her, some of his shyness melting away. “Thanks!”

“You know Suz,” Leo continued. “There’s Olivia Miller; she’s from New Zealand. She’s really good.”

“Right.” _Chill out, Esther. Of course she’s good. This is Senior ladies’._

“Sophie Tremblay, from Canada,” Leo ticked off on his fingers. “She’s older than us, but I’ve heard she’s really nice. And then…there’s one more. I don’t remember her, though.”

Phichit’s thumbs were already flying across his screen. “I got her,” he said. “Nava Malachi, from Israel.”

“Oh.” Guang Hong tilted his head. “I think she was in Juniors last year? I don’t know her, though. Yu might.”

The rest of the table nodded and looked again at their menus. The café organized itself like the typical Panera; you had to get up to order. Phichit, Chuenchai, and Guang Hong went together. Esther remained there, reading but not processing the words on the cardstock. _If she’s here, my parents are here._

“Hey,” Leo spoke, startling her. “I didn’t mean to bring anything up…earlier, with Otabek. Did something happen between you guys?”

 _That’s just it. Nothing’s happened between us, not for three years._ “No. It’s just…we haven’t talked in a while. I don’t want to make it awkward.”

“Really? It seemed for a while that you guys were, like, best friends.”

“Yeah, well…” Esther looked at her menu again. “Things change, I guess.”

There was a long pause. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you upset.”

She shook her head, quickly. “It’s fine.”

“You clearly don’t want to talk about it, though.”

“Leo, it’s okay.” She met his eyes. “Seriously. You didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Leo braced a hand on his chin. “Maybe you could talk to him, while he was here. I could get in touch with him.”

_Oh._

Esther stared at the menu, the slight tremor in her hands the only hint of the lightning bolt he’d sent directly into the heart of her.

“Only if you wanted to, though.”

She blinked, took a deep breath. “If I was going to talk to him, I’d want to do it face to face.”

“All right. Let me know if I can do anything to help.” He pointed at the counter. “Do you know what you’re getting?”

“Yeah, I’ll go with the arugula and beet salad.” She was reaching back for her wallet, when Phichit pulled his card and handed it to Leo. “I’m buying!”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I’m treating you!” he insisted, winking. “Just consider it repayment for saving me from skating naked.”

“ _Phichit_!” Chuenchai shrieked, drawing looks from some of the other café-goers. Guang Hong requested details immediately, and Leo told them that they’d better wait until he got back. Esther just smiled. The photo she posted later received no caption—Chuenchai had her head, despairingly, on the table, Phichit was regaling them with flitting hands, Leo and Guang Hong were laughing, and it was all topped off with a dramatic black and white filter—it was worth a thousand words.

 

* * *

 

“Looks like you had a good time,” Emanuel remarked, on their way to the airport. He showed her the photo, by way of explanation.

“I didn’t know you were on Instagram.”

Emanuel snorted at her. “I’m not _that_ old, you know.”

 _Has he been following me all this time?_ She settled back into her seat, pondering. _I wonder what his username is._

“Are you all right?”

“Hmm?” she looked at him, eyebrows raising. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“It’s just…you’re distant,” his eyebrows knitted, faintly.

She blinked. “I’m always distant.”

Emanuel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re focused. Thoughtful. Not distant.”

Esther offered a bewildered shrug. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Not too much, I hope? You’re skating tomorrow.”

 _I’m skating tomorrow._ “Yeah.” _I want to give them a champion._ “It’s nothing. Just…thinking about old friends.”

“You’ll be seeing her soon.”

Esther turned to him, and froze. The look he was giving her was unfamiliar, and she couldn’t place it. She debated over telling him, _no, older than Jay_ , but stopped short and nodded. “Right.”

“Are you excited?”

Esther smiled, nodded again. “Yeah.”

It was true. True enough that she and Jay hugged tightly when they met in the arrival hall. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

“I can't believe _you’re_ here!” Jay retorted, “Ms. Professional Athlete.”

“I know,” Esther offered a small smile. “I guess you can't ever really say how things will turn out. How’s Amherst?”

Jay filled her in on the first few weeks of college on the way back to the hotel. “—and one of the girls on my hall is convinced that our English professor is a vampire.”

“Really? Sounds like some Disney channel B-movie. Unless it really is one.”

“It’s all because she saw him at night one time. He was standing under a street light, and then he just looked at her; I mean, it’s a _little_ weird, but not _vampire_ weird.”

Emanuel had eventually ceded judgment on dinner to Esther, who promptly led them to an Italian restaurant. “I miss pizza, all right?” Emanuel had been surprisingly quiet about the whole thing—in fact, he didn’t speak much at all over the entire night, but watched them, as they caught up, in a sort of amused silence. She didn’t even realize it until they were returning to the hotel. Emanuel stopped in his door, and fixed the two with a withering look. “All right, I hope you’ve gotten it out of your systems. Public practice is tomorrow morning. I have a coach’s meeting in the afternoon; you’ll be getting ready for your short program in the evening. So I don’t want you staying up until all hours of the night.”

“We won’t,” Esther promised.

“Of course.” Emanuel took a step closer—he paused, and then patted her shoulder. “Good night.” That was the last word: he retreated into his room, closing the door behind him.

Esther and Jay headed into the adjoining room, where they began their evening routine. “Is he always that quiet?” she asked, once Esther came out of the bathroom.

She shook her head. “He was just letting us catch up.”

“He was listening, though.” She flopped onto her bed, rolling up onto her side. Esther mimicked her, facing her from her own bed.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

Esther chewed her lip in thought. “If you had a friend that you hadn’t talked to in a while…like, not at all…and you wanted to…sort of make amends for how you left things. How would you do it?”

Jay hummed. “I guess I would just try to reach out to them and see how receptive they might be.” She frowned. “Unless they’re the one who did something wrong. It’s not your job to try and fix the messes other people make.”

“No, I know,” Esther shook her head. “I was definitely…in the wrong.” She sighed. “I just…want to leave it a little bit better than I did before. If it’s still bothering me this long after the fact, I should try to fix it, right? I just…I don’t know if he’s even going to want to look at me.”

Jay looked aside. “Yeah, you can never really know how someone will react. I try to be pretty open-minded. I’ve mended a lot of friendships in the past that way…I think you should try, though. Even if he doesn’t want to talk about it, you’ll feel better than if you didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah.” Esther rolled onto her back again. “Thanks.”

Jay shifted and started to pull back the covers. Esther did the same. “I’m finally going to see you skate tomorrow. I mean, _really_. I’ve known for all this time that you were a professional figure skater, but now I actually get to _see_ it.” She reached over and turned the lights out.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Esther confessed, into the dark. “I keep waiting for it to hit me.”

A long silence.

“I’m sure it will,” Jay said. “It all starts tomorrow.”

 _Tomorrow, we’ll all see_. Esther closed her eyes, until she drifted off to the promise of the dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chuenchai belongs to my sister, [salt_and_stories](http://archiveofourown.org/users/salt_and_stories/pseuds/salt_and_stories). I'm simply borrowing her.


	5. Shall We Skate?

Her eyes snapped open the moment her alarm started ringing. She was already wide-awake; no need to shake off typical morning drowsiness. Jay sat up and peered blearily at her as she pulled on her practice gear. She must have sensed the mood, because she said nothing, made no sound that might have disturbed Esther’s intense focus.

Emanuel was similarly silent when they met him; he smiled, and placed his hand between Esther’s shoulders to guide her to the car. They rode to the arena, milling faintly with those dedicated enough to wake up for the early practice. “I’ll be watching from the stands,” Jay promised, as she clutched her ticket and headed for the booth.

They arrived rinkside. Esther scanned briefly across the ice before she sat to don her skates. “Start with your figure eights. I want you to practice your flying camel spins. They’re a little rough coming out of the landing; I know you can make them look elegant.”

Esther walked to the edge and handed him her skate guards. A moment passed between them, as she held his eyes—then, she put her foot to the ice, the sound of the blade the only thing to break the silence.

Briefly, she closed her eyes. _I’m the only one on this ice._ There was an older pair of ice dancers near the other end, waltzing; one of the men, unknown to her, stumbling through a triple toe loop; a petite young girl in a red and blue China jacket, watching her intently. _No one else matters._

She slid through her compulsories. Eventually, the girl— _Guang Hong’s rinkmate_ , she remembered—returned to her own practice, at the urging of her coach. Esther glanced at the edge, locking eyes with Emanuel. _Watch this._ She slid right out of the end of her figure eight, throwing herself into the momentum and landing with her leg extended, hands folded. She’d felt every nuance of the movement, like she had gone through it in slow motion.

In the stands, several people murmured with interest. Jay gasped. Esther was oblivious to it; nothing mattered but herself and the ice. _I’ll show them just who I am._

She repeated the motion thrice more, trading her butterfly camel from her short program out for the death drop in her free skate. She looked, again, at Emanuel, and received his nod of approval. Esther slid through her step sequences, just to refresh them in her memory. _The short program is tonight._ As she returned to her place in the middle, she took off—triple flip, triple loop. _Tonight, everyone is going to see me._ Triple Lutz, triple salchow. _The world is watching._

Triple axel.

_I’ll give them a champion._

Emanuel beckoned her to the edge of the rink. “Your jumps look good. I don’t want you to overdo it. Let me see your combination spins; I think we can tighten them just a little bit more.”

Esther nodded, drank from the water bottle he handed her, and skated out once again. The Chinese girl was staring at her—Esther returned her gaze for the briefest of moments, before she focused once more.

_I’ll bring home a gold medal._

When she finished, Emanuel patted her on the back, beamed as he passed her guards over the wall. “You look excellent out there,” he said, lowly, as if it were a secret to be kept between them. “You’re going to blow them away tonight.”

“Is that why you made me come here so early?” she joked, “So you could keep me a secret.” Emanuel just smiled, and said nothing.

Esther looked over her shoulder, as they were leaving. One of the other ladies had showed up about halfway through, a blonde who looked like she was approaching her mid-twenties. Esther had no idea who she was, and neither of them had been in much of a talking mood, anyway—she would know soon enough who she was. She hadn’t seen anyone she knew, _as if Suzanne Jackson would show up anywhere before ten AM._

In her last, curious glance, however, she spotted a figure entering the rink, and her heart nearly stopped, because he was _there_ —in a black three-quarter-sleeved shirt, hair ruffling faintly with the motion of his movement. She stopped, just to watch. Emanuel walked a step further before he, too, paused, turning back to her, confused. Esther stood, rooted to the spot, her eyes locked on him, her heart pounding as he started on his figure eights.

“Esther?”

She blinked. _He’s practicing. Don’t be stupid, Esther._

“Yeah. I’m coming.” Reluctantly, she turned away, followed Emanuel from the rink and back to the lobby.

Jay was waiting for them there. “Esther, that was amazing! I can’t wait to see your whole routine. I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me all this time!” She frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Esther looked determinedly down at her shoes and pretended not to notice Emanuel’s look of concern. “Let’s go.”

They returned to the hotel, where Emanuel left her with strict directions to rest. Esther took her shower, unable to get the image of him from her mind. Otabek was here, in the same vicinity as her. He had been _right there_.

Esther glanced across the room. Jay was sprawled on the bed, poring over a textbook. She laid back on the bed, pulling up the ISU’s schedule. The men’s short program was tomorrow: right before they went on for the free skate. “Hey,” she spoke. “I’m thinking I’ll head over early tomorrow. The men are going on right before the ladies.”

Jay blinked. “You want to see them?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a few friends I want to see.”

“I’m down.”

“Cool.” She turned back to the screen, just in time to see a Snapchat notification from Phichit. She opened to a selfie from him, Guang Hong, and Leo. _Squad @ the rink._ Esther smiled, snapped a quick picture in return, and sent it back. _I practiced earlier, slackers._

She didn’t hear back for another half hour—the group chat that Phichit had added her to (consisting of himself, Chuenchai, Leo, and Guang Hong), buzzed with a new addition from Leo. The name had begun as Skate America Squad, but changed nearly hourly: currently, it was _I claim this medal for Thailand_.

 

Esther opened Instagram—Phichit’s update was at the top, and featured several action shots of Leo and Guang Hong, some of Phichit himself; there was one of Leo and Guang Hong gliding along together like they were in pairs, laughing all the while. _He really is a great people photographer._ A selfie, of the three together with Chuenchai and Celestino Cialdini, who’d turned out to be Phichit’s coach. She tapped the like and thumbed back over to text. By now, the group name had been changed to _Phichit is a thirsty hoe,_ courtesy of Chuenchai.

 

Guang Hong changed the group name to _I’m Phichit and I almost skated naked._

 

Esther felt a slow smile creeping over her; warmth suffused her cheeks.

 

Esther closed out her messages, glanced at the time. _Seven hours to go-time._ Taking a deep breath through the sudden adrenaline rush, she opened Instagram again.

_Oh._

Leo had posted a photo, a picture of himself, an arm slung around one very broad shoulder, giving his most serious face to the camera. His companion’s expression was one of effortless, disinterested neutrality. _Rinkmate reunion_ ✌️ _,_ the caption read.

It was one thing to see Otabek in performance footage, in press photos—here, in this casual photo, Esther couldn’t deny that he’d grown up. He’d been her height when they were together in Boston; he could’ve easily passed for one of the middle schoolers her parents were grooming to enter Juniors. He was barely recognizable now; tall as Leo, and he’d bulked up. Baby fat had fallen off and exposed cutting-edge cheekbones and a killer jawline.

Some things were familiar, though—those deep brown eyes, the indomitable, steely focus that he infused into his every action.

_I wonder if I’ve changed that much._

Esther tossed the notion out, closed the app and tried to put it all out of her mind. _I’m skating today._ As the hours ticked by, it became more and more tangible, looming on her horizon like a dark cloud, swelling with the beat of her pulse.

Finally, it was time. Emanuel knocked on her door a bit before, carrying a case that he set on the counter before the bright-lit mirror by the bathroom. He opened and unpacked as she took her seat, remained wordlessly still as he applied the shadow under her cheekbones, the dusky, glittery blue to her eyelids, lined her eyes in dark grey and lengthened her lashes in thick black. Jay stood by, fascinated, as he filled in her eyebrows. “We’ll do your lips just before you go on.” He stepped aside, and Esther beheld her reflection, transformed. Her hair was gathered into a braid that hugged the back of her head; only one lock was left to hang free by her left cheek, to frame her face.

Emanuel stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “All right,” he said, “Let’s go, then.”

Esther bundled into her warm-up set, zipping the Luxembourg flag over her heart. Emanuel took the garment bag containing her short program costume from the closet, and with that, they headed for the lobby.

The car ride to the Sears Centre was silent. Emanuel was explaining how competition worked to a very interested Jay—Esther shut her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing, wishing all at once that they would acknowledge her and that they would just disappear, that it would all go away and she wouldn’t have to do this.

Once they arrived, they sent Jay off to the stands with instructions to find Phichit and the rest. Esther took a deep, shaking breath, and Emanuel rested a hand on her shoulder. “Easy does it. This way.”

He steered her to a room full of ISU officials, coaches, and other skaters. They were the third to arrive. Esther sized up her fellows, and they did the same: Yu, Guang Hong’s rinkmate, watched her like a predatory hawk. Up close, she was even smaller, no more than four foot nine and slender as a sapling. The other was the girl from the morning—her jacket was blazoned with a maple leaf, and she offered a smile. That was the Canadian girl, then. Esther fell in beside her.

“Hi, I’m Sophie Tremblay,” she shook Esther’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

It was all she could do to reply, “Esther Markowitz. Nice to meet you too.” Her eyes flickered to Yu, watching her expectantly.

“Yu Chen,” she said, as if the name were enough. Esther offered her a brief inclination of the head.

The ISU officials were speaking to each other. Esther couldn’t hear a word of it over the blood rushing in her ears.

Next to arrive was a young, tan-skinned girl with a classic ballerina’s bun. Her jacket was white with blue piping, in a shade Esther knew well. Her eyes widened as she scanned the three already waiting, and she made a beeline for her. “Esther Markowitz?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Nava Malachi.”

“Hi.” Esther shook her hand—Nava was beaming, nearly jittery with excitement. The door opened again, and another girl entered: Esther glimpsed the flag of New Zealand on her sleeve. She had blonde hair caught up in a ponytail, though her dark eyebrows revealed her true color. She had a hot rod red lip, and her face was highlighted with gold glitter. “Hello, everyone.”

Everyone else greeted her as Olivia, and so Esther did too. Olivia didn’t have anything special to say to her, but she gave her an interested look as they acknowledged each other’s presence. _They’re all sizing me up. I’m the unknown quantity._

They waited a few more minutes—the ISU officials began checking watches. Finally, the door flew open for the last addition. “Sorry,” Suzanne Jackson joined them at the front of the room, breezing in to stand by Olivia. Esther looked over her shoulder, watched her parents filing in beside the other coaches. Her heart leapt into her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut and looked ahead.

“Right,” one of the officials spoke, picking up a bag. “We’re all here, let’s begin.” The coaches filed up behind their skaters, where they waited expectantly. He strode to the left side of the line, offering it first to Yu. She reached in and drew the number two—the placard received a grim look, and her coach squeezed her shoulder.

The official moved, next, to Sophie. She drew three, and nodded.

Esther reached into the bag, breathing deeply. She pulled four. “That’s not bad,” Emanuel murmured. Esther swallowed again, _in seven, hold seven, out ten._

Nava pulled the number five, shot Esther a wild, anticipatory smile. “It seems we’re going right down the line,” the official joked, and a few coaches and skaters chuckled. Olivia, fittingly, drew sixth. Esther sent a sidelong glance down the line—her parents wore a look she had come to known as the thin-lipped mask of displeasure. Then, her father was suddenly looking at her. Esther turned quickly away, closed her eyes and focused on breathing.

“We have our performance order. Suzanne Jackson, representing the United States, will perform first, in thirty minutes. Make your preparations; we begin shortly.” The officials exited the room, some lingering to speak with the coaches. Emanuel’s hands alighted on her shoulders and squeezed: he steered her out of the room, down the hall and towards the lockers. He stopped her, finally, in a side corridor, crossing around in front of her and looking intently into her eyes.

“Look at me.” She did. “I want you to breathe. Just like you’ve been doing.” She nodded, shakily, and he took a few deep breaths with her. “All right, now, listen. You have been preparing for this for months. All of your practicing, perfecting, it has been for this. I don’t want you getting any thoughts now that you aren’t ready. I am your coach, and I say you are.”

Esther nodded, again, tried to believe him. She let out an unsteady breath. “Okay.”

The opening ceremony was brief. Esther stood by the TV screen and watched as the ice cleared for Group One. _Representing the United States, Suzanne Jackson._

The cheers were loud—“Home field,” Sophie said, and some of the others laughed. Nava shot a surreptitious look at Esther, but her eyes were only for the screen.

Suzanne greeted her adoring public with a smile, basking in their attention as she spiraled into the center of the rink. Her costume resembled a ballerina’s tutu, dusky black to match the Black Swan-esque designs painted around her eyes. Moments later, they knew why: the music cued up, and Esther felt the bland chuckle leaving her before she could really think about it.

“Real Russian music, huh?” she muttered. The others shot her curious looks, but said nothing. Yu was absent, preparing for her own turn, but the rest of them watched as Suzanne began her graceful routine to Swan Lake.

“It’s nice,” Sophie said, perhaps thirty seconds in.

“Yeah,” Olivia agreed, “This kind of routine can be really bland, it’s so overdone, you know. But I like it, she’s doing well with it.”

Suzanne had always been a brilliant performer of the classical routines—she reveled in ballets and operas, and scorned everything else as unworthy of the art. Her parents’ dream, in other words. The crowd cheered for her double axel. “Nice,” Olivia agreed.

She ended in a ballerina’s pose; feet crossed, arms gracefully extended, one out and one over her head. “I should go.” Sophie bid them farewell, and headed off in the direction of the locker rooms. The screen shifted to the kiss and cry, where Suzanne sat between Gabriel Wagner and Leah Markowitz—they were already speaking to her, point and counterpoint. Esther remembered that hot seat only too well. After she’d left skating, it hadn’t taken them long to choose Suzanne as her replacement: resolutely, she ignored the bitter taste in the back of her throat.

 _The short program score for Suzanne Jackson is 64.87._ The crowd cheered; Suzanne smiled, and her parents gave modest, satisfied nods. Could’ve been better, could’ve been worse. _She is currently in first place._

The picture shifted back to the ice—Yu was now taking center stage, in a brilliant, flame-like Cheongsam, flashing orange under the bright lights. _Representing China, Chen Yu._

“It’s her Senior debut too,” Nava said. “We were in Juniors together last year.”

The music began; an active, lively tune on a wooden flute, erhu, and drums.

As soon as she started, Esther could tell it was too soon. Yu was undeniably talented, unquestionably skilled, but she lacked polish. Her routine, quick and energetic, would’ve fetched top honors in the Juniors. On the Senior stage, it just looked choppy.

 _Her coach must’ve pushed her._ Yu knew she wasn’t performing, Esther could see it in the crease of her brow.

She finished her routine, sweaty and panting. “She should’ve waited another year,” Emanuel murmured, in French. Her coach appeared to be lecturing her, in the kiss and cry. “I imagine, sometimes, what ladies’ figure skaters could accomplish, if they weren’t forced to have their best careers at fifteen.”

Esther thought of her own Senior debut, and silently agreed. _At least she’s not imploding on the ice._

_The short program score for Chen Yu is 58.16. She is currently in second place._

Sophie appeared on the ice: Esther’s heart spiked again, and he patted her shoulder.

 _Representing Canada, Sophie Tremblay._ Sophie’s leotard and skirt were a dreamy blue; her ash-blonde hair was in a braid. She was terribly pretty, but in a way that left her approachable. She settled into her starting pose, and with a plucking of strings, began to move.

Sophie was amazingly fluid, floating around to the sound of the music, like it was a part of her and she had no choice but to follow it, wherever it might go. Esther glanced at Emanuel, observed his thoughtful look. The orchestra crescendoed; Sophie flew. Nava gasped: her distance really was incredible. “She could podium,” Olivia observed.

Sophie completed her routine, and waved to the crowd with a beaming smile. _The short program score for Sophie Tremblay is 64.49. She is currently in second place._

Emanuel’s hand was between her shoulderblades. The world went suddenly quiet, beneath the ringing of her ears; his voice was far away. Group One had finished—the rink was clearing, and the Zamboni was coming out. In a few minutes, it would be time for Group Two’s warmup. Thankfully, he was guiding her along, pressing her towards the locker rooms. “I’ll meet you by the rink.”

She changed with mechanical efficiency. Her costume was simple—a pin-striped, navy suit jacket, missing its trousers, complete with matching red tie and pocket square. The look was completed with gloves, and an old-style fedora that fit over her hair. She took a deep breath, listened to the distant sounds outside, wondered if it was too late to back out.

Slowly, she stood, and made her way out to the rink.

Emanuel was waiting for her—he pulled a tube of lipstick from his pocket—it was a deep, dark red, the same as her tie and her pocket square. “There you go.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, shaking her lightly.

The warmup for Group Two began. Esther slid out, all of her limbs trembling with tightness, and somehow, at the same time, feeling too loose in her body. It passed her by in a blur—she went in for her triple axel, bit back a curse as it turned into a single, too-aware of Nava and Olivia’s eyes. She didn’t try it again.

 _The warmup for Group Two has completed. Ladies, please exit the ice._ Nava and Olivia skated out to the edge, as did Esther, though her path ended by the wall, across from Emanuel. Her heartbeat shook her ribs; felt like it was trying to punch right out of her chest. Emanuel reached across, hands squeezing at her biceps. He was the picture of calm. “Show them what you’ve showed me,” he said, lowly. “Show them what you’re made of.”

Esther blinked, looked into his eyes. _I’ve come too far to blow this now._ She swallowed, and nodded.

_Representing Luxembourg, Esther Markowitz._

Esther settled to a stop, at the center of the rink. _This is it._ Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, waited for the music to start.

As it began, her pulse was still leaping in her throat. Her mind was a blank, terrified buzz; her moves came to her mere seconds before she had to do them. The butterfly into her camel spin was too tight; the landing juddered up her leg. _I guess that means you had a good practice._

She could see Yu now, watching the screen out in the lobby—maybe she was in the audience now, realizing that everything she’d heard about Esther Markowitz was true.

She dropped too low into the lunge and almost lost her balance. _Shit, shit—_ she regained herself, but her momentum was lost, and her triple axel was a single. The applause that followed felt like a stinging slap across the face. _I will not break down here,_ she gritted her teeth, landed her combo. _Not today, not again._ She could lose everything else, but she would not give them a repeat of three years ago. Not while her parents were here to watch, while they could look at her and tell themselves that it wasn’t their fault they couldn’t make her into a champion.

There were gasps as she dropped out of her scratch spin, swapping her feet on the way down to the sit. She lifted her hand into the air, remembered Emanuel’s instruction about the artful position of her fingers as she gave it the twist. _I won’t let everything he did go to waste._

Her step sequence followed. _Almost done._ She reclined for her layback spin, tightened into the crossover, spinning around until the arena was blurry from the speed of her motion, not just the stinging of her eyes. _Come on, keep it together. This time for sure._

The takeoff was right this time: she landed a perfunctory triple axel, rougher than she had since the beginning of her training with Emanuel—but she landed it, and at last, it was over.

For long moments, she stayed on the ice, unwilling to go to the edge, where Emanuel waited, unable to face him. Then, she steeled herself, lifted an acknowledging hand to the crowd, and skated, slowly, straight to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, as soon as she met him. He shook his head at her—it was fine by her; the way her voice had shaken when she spoke, the new plan was to give up on talking for the rest of the day.

 _I fucked it all up again, didn’t I?_ And it really _had_ been in front of everyone this time—her parents, her coach, her friends, the world, watching eagerly for her comeback. _I told them I’d bring home gold._ She bit down harshly on her lip, tipped her head up and blinked quickly against the tears. Emanuel wrapped his arm around her, a solid presence at her side.

_The score for Esther Markowitz is 60.92. She is currently in third place._

She looked ahead, brows furrowing. _60.92?_ She wasn’t sure what she’d had in her head, but it had been something a lot lower than that. Emanuel jostled her a bit, and when she looked at him he was smiling. “That’s a new personal best.”

“Well…” she sputtered. “Yeah, it’s not like I’d have to work _hard_ to pass my old Senior scores. I _imploded_ last time I was on the ice, in case you didn’t notice—”

“ _Exactly_.” He squeezed at her arm; Esther fell silent. “Last time, you imploded. This time, you had a rough start. Your nerves got to you. But you stayed in it. You came back from it and finished the rest of your routine. As of now, you’re only a few points behind the others. You are far from not having a shot at this.”

Esther stared at the numbers up on the screen. Then, she leaned over and hugged Emanuel. “Thank you.”

They exited the kiss and cry, just as Nava stood waiting at the edge for her cue to go on. “Esther!” she called, as they passed. “That was such a cool routine!”

Emanuel’s hand tapped lightly at her shoulder—she must’ve been gaping. “Oh! Thank you. Good luck with yours.” Nava’s costume looked like a flapper dress, complete with opera gloves.

“Thanks! I hope you’ll watch me.” _Representing Israel, Nava Malachi._ She turned and removed her guards, left them on the wall and took the ice.

“Let’s sit here,” Esther decided, heading up the steps and choosing a seat there. Emanuel lowered himself next to her, and they both watched.

Nava had the style and the energy of the best Broadway performers—Emanuel nodded at the bright, charismatic expressions that she gave to the audience: “She’s right to look up to you, Esther,” he said. “She’s like you.”

It was hard to believe—watching this shining new presence emerge onto the ice, thinking that there was anything about them that was the same. “She’s incredible.”

Nava finished with a flourish, grinning wildly as she waved with both hands. “Give her a few years,” Emanuel said, “She’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”

Nava hugged her coach in the kiss and cry. _The short program score for Nava Malachi is 65.75. She is currently in first place._

“Wow,” Esther murmured.

“You see what a good performance score can do for you?” He turned to her. “I know you were anxious today. It showed in your skating. You were very tight.”

Esther nodded. She’d felt it, but how she might’ve stopped it had been at the back of her mind.

“I have faith in you and your free program, Esther. You can rebound tomorrow. What you need is to have faith in yourself.”

Nava and her coach stopped beneath them. Esther stood, leaned over the rail. “That was really great, Nava. You should be proud.”

Nava beamed at her. “Thank you! It means so much to hear that from you,” she babbled, breathlessly. “It’s just, you’re the reason I started skating. It meant so much to me, being able to see another Jewish girl on the international stage. I was so disappointed when you quit, but then I heard you were coming back. I’ve always wanted to skate on the same level as you.”

Esther’s eyes widened. She wasn’t sure what it was Nava had said that left her feeling so exposed. “Oh. Well…thank you.”

Her eyes seemed to flash, suddenly, with a phantom flame. “Don’t think I’ll go easy on you, though, just because you’re my inspiration. I’m going to beat you.”

Esther blinked. Then, all at once, the tension seemed to dissipate. She smiled, held out her hand. “I’m glad,” she said, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

 _Representing New Zealand, Olivia Miller._ Esther sat back, gave Emanuel a small smile. “I’m proud of you,” he said.

What was immediately clear about Olivia was that she was a triple threat—her moves were sharp, her mastery of the routine was imminently clear, and her performance was commanding. The intense, jazzy tune allowed her to show off her best moves, everything she was capable of. Esther knew she was looking at first place long before she had finished.

“She’s a favorite for the Final, you know,” Emanuel told her.

_We’ll see about that._

_The short program score for Olivia Miller is 69.50. She is currently in first place._

And then, it was over. Tomorrow, they would return to the ice and fight for the podium. For now…it was over. Exhaustion hit Esther like a wall; her legs felt weak and her head was light. “Come on, let’s head back.” Slowly, she stood. She made her way to the locker room, where she stripped off her costume and replaced it in its bag. She scrubbed her face clean of performance makeup, and released her hair from its elaborate braid. Donning her suit once again, she returned to the lobby.

Jay was waiting for her, along with Phichit, Guang Hong, Leo, and Chuenchai, who was carrying a Luxembourg flag. “Esther!” they enveloped her in a group hug as she emerged. “How does it feel to be back?” Leo was the first one to ask her an intelligible question.

 _How_ does _it feel?_ She hadn’t stopped to think about it yet, but when she did, she smiled. “It feels right.”

“Esther,” Emanuel called her, from a few paces away, “Come over here.”

He was being interviewed, she realized, and as she drew near he put his arm around her and brought her to join him before the cameras. The reporters’ attention shifted to her at once—“How do you feel about your performance today?” The microphone was pointed at her.

“I’ll be honest, I was hoping for a little more,” Emanuel nodded, and Esther just smiled, rueful. “I’m a little rusty. I’m hoping to catch up tomorrow at the free skate.”

“How do you feel about your competitors?”

“They all seem like really lovely people. I haven’t had much opportunity to talk with them, but the interactions I have had have been positive.”

“How about Suzanne Jackson? She is currently training with your former coaches; your parents. How do they feel about that?”

Emanuel’s arm tightened on her. Esther schooled her features, adopting the blandest smile she could muster. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “I call my own shots these days.”

“Well, we certainly enjoyed seeing your return to the international stage, and we look forward to your performance tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you.”

The cameras turned away. Both of them let out sighs of relief. “That was well-done,” said Emanuel.

“Yeah, I’ve been dodging nosy press since I was eight,” Esther sighed. “Have you seen my parents at all?”

Emanuel turned her back around. “Don’t worry about them, Esther.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She looked around the lobby, but there was no sign of either of them. “They’re probably off looking for Suzanne. She loves to sneak off and make out with people right after a performance.”

Emanuel chuckled, then cast her a searching look. “…wait, really?”

Her friends approached, offering the rest of their congratulations. “That was insane!” Jay’s cheeks were still flushed from the cold of the rink, and her eyes were flashing the way they did when she found something very interesting. “I mean, I think it’s an accomplishment that I can just stay upright on the ice, but _you_ , and everybody, but I mean, I don’t know them—”

Esther laughed, and looked to the boys. “Are you guys heading back?”

Leo nodded. “Yep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“Yeah, you do,” she grinned. “I’m going to come cheer you guys on. Chai, we can look for you when we get there.”

“Text me!”

“Okay. Night, guys, and if I don’t see you before you go on, good luck!” They waved and parted ways; Jay and Esther piled into the back of the car to return to the hotel.

“How did it feel?” Jay asked, on the road.

“Like a blur,” Esther told her. “I only remember flashes of it.”

“You really did great. I bet you’ll do even better tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

As they were getting ready for bed, a knock came at the door to the adjacent room. Esther opened it for Emanuel, who said, “Come over here for a few minutes, I want to talk to you.”

She crossed over to his side—it was a mirror image of her and Jay’s room, but with a single queen bed. Emanuel sat at the edge of the mattress, faced Esther as she curled up in the swivel chair in front of the desk. “I’ve already talked to you about today, but more importantly, I think you already know what you need to do.” She nodded, took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you how _I_ did today. As your coach…”

“As my coach?” Esther frowned. “You did everything anyone would’ve expected you to do.”

He shook his head. “No. As my coach, it’s not just my job to train you, it’s to assist you in whatever way you need. I had a feeling before the competition that you would be anxious. I wanted to ask you if I handled it well. I thought that treating it as a matter-of-fact might be best—not mentioning it outright. That’s upset you in the past.”

Esther blinked through her daze. _Is he seriously asking how he can improve my mental health?_ She looked up at him. “The fact that you acknowledge it at all—everything you’ve done for me already, it’s…it’s more than enough.”

“Still. If there’s anything I can do to ease your nerves…”

“It’s anxiety, it’s not going away,” she chuckled, drily. “Just…keep doing what you’re doing. Stand by me. Have more faith in me than I do that I can win.”

Emanuel looked momentarily stunned, but quickly, his features schooled. He nodded. “All right. I can do that.”

Esther unfolded her legs with a stretch and stood. “Okay. I’m gonna head for bed now. Tomorrow’s another long day.”

“Just another day in the life, right?” he smiled, and stood. For a second, it seemed like he might’ve been about to hug her, but he walked past her and opened the door. “Goodnight, Esther.”

“What was that?” Jay asked, once the door was shut and they were both in bed.

“Skating stuff,” Esther said, and turned the light out.

 

* * *

 

The next day began with a picture-perfect overcast autumn morning. The clouds were still there approaching afternoon, as Esther and Jay entered Sears Centre and proceeded to the rink, looking for Chuenchai. They found her, waving excitably from a row of seats near the kiss and cry. There were a pile of flags in the seat next to her; Esther could make out an American and a Chinese one, just to name a few. “Leo’s going in Group One,” she shared, quickly, “Phichit and Guang Hong are in Group Two.”

“I can’t wait to see this,” Esther slid her hands into her pockets. “I found out Leo was doing his own programs when I called him this summer. I’m glad I get the chance to see him perform them.”

“Guang Hong says his free skate is really exciting this year! That’s not until tomorrow, though. Today, we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that he lands his quad toe—oh! Here comes Group One now.”

Esther looked to the ice—Leo was there, as were two other men’s skaters she didn’t know. No sign of Otabek. _He’s group two, then, with Guang Hong and Phichit._ Esther settled in to wait, jittery with anticipation.

The two skaters she didn’t know were up first, delivering solid but ultimately forgettable performances. Finally, the time came for the third performance.

_Representing the United States, Leo de la Iglesia._

The three of them cheered; Chuenchai shook her American flag. As soon as she lowered it, she gaped. “Who _made_ that thing?” Leo’s costume was a suit that faintly resembled a drum major’s getup in pale yellow, with sparkling orange accents. “He looks like a banana!”

“You can take it up with him after,” Esther replied, “He’s about to start.”

The music cued up with a piano riff. It didn’t take long for the beat to pick up. “This is Leo, all right,” Esther murmured, with a smile. He had no quads, but he’d strategically placed his triples to maximize their value. Every inch of it, every move was so undeniably _Leo_ —she found herself thinking of Emanuel’s reaction, whenever she finished a particularly good run of her free skate. Is that what he saw, when she was on the ice?

 _I hope I look even half as good as Leo._ He, too, had “home field”, and he was feeding off the crowd’s energy. As his routine concluded, he was beaming, and he came quickly out of his finishing pose to wave. He received a crushing hug from his coach at the kiss and cry. His score sent him straight to first place.

“Yeah, Leo!” the three of them cheered, and Chuenchai turned to them as the brief break before the second group was announced. “I’m going to go find Phichit. Are you guys staying here?”

“I think so.” She could talk to Leo later. Chai left her things with them and disappeared, running down towards the edge of the rink. “Hey, Banana Boy!”

“Men’s skating is really intense,” once Esther was finished laughing, Jay spoke. “I mean, I would guess it’s all the same scoring system, right?”

Esther nodded. “It is. The difference is, they’re doing quads—most of them, anyway.” Leo was a notable exception in the Senior field, but he was keeping up impressively well with the rest— _I mean, he’s_ leading _the pack._

“It’s crazy.” Jay looked out to the ice. She turned back to Esther. “No women do quads?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s a physics problem. Puberty makes guys stronger in ways that make it easier for them to achieve the kind of air time you need to go around that many times. It does the opposite to us; we get wider hips and more mass up top; it slows us down. Most women can’t reliably land a triple axel.” She chuckled. “You should hear Emanuel when he gets on about it. He thinks it’s a good thing women can’t land quads; _it’s kept the sport from degrading into what the men’s has become, some foolish race to jump the highest—if that was all it took I’d send you out there with spring-loaded shoes and call myself a coach_.”

Jay looked thoughtful. “You can land a triple axel.”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever thought about trying quads?”

Esther turned aside, stared out over the ice. “When I was younger. Too young to know any better. You know, when all you want to do is be the very best ever. My parents shut that down pretty quickly, as you might imagine.”

Jay snorted. “Well, your parents are assholes.” Esther looked at her. “No offense. Seriously, though. Who said women can’t do quads?”

“The laws of physics?”

“If you ask me, the answer to quads in women’s figure skating is _not yet_.” Jay sat back in her seat and folded her arms, smirking.

“Quit looking at me like that,” Esther muttered, “I feel like you’re probing me.” She faced ahead, and sat bolt upright. “Oh, here comes Group Two.”

Phichit and Guang Hong took their places on the ice. Guang Hong was already in costume; a black-and-magenta top and trouser set. Otabek was the last one out; his zip jacket was a deep blue, white-sleeved and edged in gold. The koshkar-muiz extended down his right side in yellow. He wore a hard look, and Esther knew from experience that there would be no shaking him from his path.

“Esther?”

She looked up, quickly, found Jay looking at her in confusion. “Yeah?”

“You were spacing there. Who were you looking at?” she turned to the rink, and alighted on Otabek. Her eyebrows rose. “Who’s that?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Mercifully, it was almost time for Guang Hong to go on.

 _Representing China, Ji Guang Hong._ He took the rink with a wave and a smile. Chuenchai came racing back into her seat, gasping briefly for breath before she picked up her Chinese flag and waved it high.

“How’s Phichit?” Esther asked, leaning in close.

“He’s ready,” Chai breathed, “Excited.”

Guang Hong assumed his place. _It’s his senior debut,_ Esther remembered, and crossed her fingers.

The music was a subdued classical piece, leaning heavily on the cello as its centerpiece. “His quad toe is coming up,” Chai whispered. Esther squeezed her fingers together, her breath catching as he took off—it came out in the hiss as he put a hand down, but he stayed on his feet.

 _Come on, finish it._ Guang Hong kept right on going, and closed his routine with a flourish. Esther breathed deeply, briefly closed her eyes. _Good._

His coach looked fairly neutral when he joined her at the kiss and cry, but she allowed herself a small smile and approving nod when his score was announced—Guang Hong took second place, just behind Leo. He was far better-prepared than his rinkmate.

“Is Phichit next?” Esther asked. Chuenchai shook her head, and her pulse spiked. _That means—_

_Representing Kazakhstan, Otabek Altin._

“Who is he supposed to be?” Chai asked, as he skated out. “Hansel?”

Esther didn’t reply—from the moment he’d entered the rink, he had her eyes. Behind her, Jay and Chuenchai shared a look.

The routine began with a forceful declension of heavy strings. The melody was a refined dance, full of intensity: it tugged at her, pulled at something within as the piano came in and out, as the flute echoed sweetly around the edges. And all the while, Otabek kept her attention, mesmerized her with the quiet strength of his performance, the passion simmering just at the edges. She gasped when he took off for his triple axel, transported to a moment back in time—

_“I want to do it like you do. You look like you’re flying.”_

_“Okay. Watch me. Like this…”_

For a single moment, he hung, suspended in the air, like he could stay up there forever if he so decided. There were tears in her eyes.

The strings receded for a lone instrument, singing sweetly at the highest limits of its range, before it fell back to join the rest. The theme repeated itself in slow, rapidly increasing motion, the flute whirling, Otabek was coming, at last, to rest, settling with one leg bent.

Esther wished that he would’ve skated forever.

“He’s pretty good,” Jay remarked, as one would comment on the weather.

 _You have no idea._ Otabek joined his coach, they exchanged no words between them—his score was a few points higher than Leo’s, putting him in first place. Otabek nodded, his coach patted his shoulder, and he stood to don his jacket and move aside.

For a split second, Esther thought to go after him, but Chuenchai was bouncing in her seat. “Look, Phichit’s going on!”

_Representing Thailand, Phichit Chulanont._

His smile was brighter than the lights; in his red and gold suit, he looked like a star. “Nice work, Chuenchai!” Jay said.

“Yeah,” Esther agreed, settled back in her seat and watched as Otabek disappeared from view. “He looks great.”

“Shh, he’s about to start!” Chai unfolded a flag that had to be bigger than her other flags put together.

Esther laughed as the music began—if only for a moment, everything else disappeared; there was no room for it next to Phichit’s contagious joy. Soon, the whole rink was clapping along to a tune, no doubt familiar to all of them. “Ugh, audiences are never in time,” Jay complained, but joined in anyway.

Watching Phichit, it was easy to remember why she loved this. His routine was the joy of skating, personified. The realization hit her like a bolt— _I’m gonna be on this ice soon._ Then, just as quickly: _I can’t wait._

Phichit didn’t take first place, but he did receive a standing ovation. “Come on!” Chai stood up, bundled her flag and hurried towards the rink. Esther checked her phone.

“Coach says he’s in the lobby. I gotta go, I’m on soon. Tell Phichit he was amazing!”

“Okay!” Chai and Jay waved her off as she hurried out.

Esther emerged in the lobby, searching for Emanuel among the crowds. Something caught her eye at last, but it wasn’t the tall, notable figure of her coach—it was Otabek, just a few paces away, standing and checking his phone, like he was waiting for something.

She took an instinctive step towards him, and froze. There was still time to back away; she could turn and act like she hadn’t seen him. She could move on and look for Emanuel, and let things continue just as they were.

 _I don’t want that, though. Do I?_ Jay had told her to try—she was already so out of her depth; at her first international competition in three years, in fifth place, running out of time before she had to return to the ice and give it her best shot for the Final.

Swallowing, she steeled herself, fists balling by her sides. _Screw it._ Before she could think too hard, she started walking, ignored the sudden wave of nauseating adrenaline that washed over her.

“Hey.” Her own voice was barely audible to her, but he looked up, and then down, at her. She saw his eyes, and forgot everything. _Fuck. Was that seriously the best I could do? Hey?_

“Hey,” he said, softly, in response. They still hadn’t looked away from each other. Slowly, she opened her mouth, searching desperately for something to say—nervously, she wet her lips. There was nothing for it. _I guess the truth will have to do._

“I wanted to see you again.”

She’d forgotten how deeply he could pierce with a look—Esther had always felt that Otabek alone possessed the uncanny ability to look right into the heart of her; that he knew her, perhaps, better than she knew herself. “Why?”

 _Ouch. I suppose that’s his right, though._ “I don’t want to leave things…the way that they were.”

His brows still gained that little, thoughtful tilt; the small difference that distinguished his thinking face from the bevy of other, similar in-public expressions. She suppressed a smile that flickered at the corner of her mouth—she thought she heard her name, then, and she turned to see Emanuel beckoning her his way.

Desperately, she turned back to Otabek. “I have to skate. But…I want to talk to you.” On tense feet, she lingered. “Please watch me,” she said, and hurried to join Emanuel.

“Come on, we’ve got to get your makeup done.” He’d gotten her hair out of the way that morning, and the look was not terribly complicated—a drastic smoky eye, long, dramatic liner, and deep shadows on her cheeks. With a final brush of highlight over her cheekbones, he pronounced her finished. “Let’s go; Group One will be warming up soon.”

She took to the ice with Yu and Sophie. Esther did five figures and a few deep breaths, and found she was feeling oddly calm. _I’ve done everything I can. Now I just have to skate._ With her next exhale, she released the tension, and let herself remember her routine.

As soon as the warmup ended, it was Yu’s turn to go on, and Esther’s turn to go change.

This costume was all one piece, a thin, velvety black suit that hugged her as she pulled it on. Flames circled her thighs and arms. In the center of a chest rested a single, opalescent costume jewel, glowing like a beating heart. Yu was almost done—it was almost her turn.

Emanuel greeted her by the rinkside with a smile: he pulled a pencil from his pocket and filled in her lips. They both watched as Yu sat on the bench with downcast eyes, awaiting her score. _The free program score for Chen Yu is 103.20. Her overall score is 161.36. She is currently in first place._

Emanuel squeezed her shoulder. Esther looked at him, gave a brief, firm nod. There was no need for words, not this time. She bent to remove her guards, put one foot onto the ice, and waited.

_Representing Luxembourg, Esther Markowitz._

She took the ice without so much as an upraised hand. She came to the middle and stopped, closed her eyes, waited.

Esther felt the music before she heard it—they moved together, one body and one soul.

 _I guess that could have gone worse._ The choreographic sequence was first; a slow, graceful series of moves that she had to be careful not to hit too hard. _I wonder if he’s watching._ The first combo approached: double axel, double loop. _No. I can’t be worried about that now._ Maybe it was too late now to mend what had drifted apart so many years ago. Some distant, rational part of her knew that, were it to be the case, she would be heartbroken about it later. Now, she felt almost untouchable, as she took off for her triple axel and flew.

 _I can be reborn as many times as I have to be; with or without him._ She had already lost him: from here, she could only grow stronger from it. _Are you watching, Otabek? I was. Do you see what I became in your absence?_ Her flying combination spin turned her into a whirling inferno. She was a firebird, rising from the ashes of her own demise.

Triple Lutz. Triple flip. Triple Lutz, triple salchow— _he had the most beautiful quadruple salchow, earlier,_ she remembered, all in a jumble with Jay’s voice, _not yet_ , and her own, small and childish, _I want to fly_. She rose from her butterfly spin, began her step sequence.

 _This is only the beginning. I will reach heights that I barely dared to dream of before._ She whipped into her final flying camel spin, felt the joy of it sing through her bones.

_Yuuri Katsuki. Leo, Phichit, Chuenchai, Guang Hong. Jay. Emanuel. Otabek._

She sailed through her final triple axel, landed for her crossover spin.

_Do you see me now?_

The sound of the audience was a distant roar in her ears. Now, she raised her hands to them, lowering her head in a grateful bow as it hit her.

She turned around, beaming, saw Emanuel waiting, and skated out to the edge. A bouquet of flowers fell in her path, and she scooped it up on her way there. “Did you see me?” she cried, colliding into Emanuel, who pulled her into a crushing hug that lifted her off her feet.

“Esther, _c’est vraiment magnifique_ , you were _incredible_!” He set her down and dug for her guards, running the end of his coat’s sleeve over his eyes. “Oh—here they are. Come on, come here.” They sat on the bench, where he enveloped her in another tight hug, if only to allow him the opportunity to lean close and whisper, “That was a performance worthy of the Grand Prix final.”

The wait felt like an eternity, even though it was probably only a few moments. When the loudspeakers kicked on, Esther scrambled for his hand, squeezing it tightly as she waited, with bated breath.

 _The free program score for Esther Markowitz is 126.94._ Her eyes popped wide open. _Her overall score is 187.86. She is currently in first place._

And then, Emanuel was hugging her _again_ , and she was staring at the numbers on the screen, trying to make sense of it. _That’s_ my _score?_ Euphoria stole over her, slowly—she didn’t know how she looked, but Emanuel mirrored how she felt. “Come on, they’re about to send the next one on.” They stood, his arm tight around her shoulders, which he squeezed. “You should be proud of yourself, Esther, and not just for that performance. I know I certainly am.”

Still dazed, she smiled ahead. “Thanks, Coach.”

They were passing by the stairs to the lobby when a voice stopped her: “Hey.”

She stopped, saw him, and felt it all break over her like water on rock: because there stood Otabek, wearing the same, intrigued look that he had the first time she’d ever spoken to him. “Hey,” she said, unable to help the corner of her mouth, this time, from pulling into a smile.

“I heard you,” he said, simply.

Esther bit her lip, faced the rink, and took a few steps closer, out of Emanuel’s earshot. “Can I find you later?”

“Hotel restaurant,” he said. She nodded, and he turned and headed down the hall, disappearing from view.

She took a deep breath and turned back to Emanuel, who looked morbidly curious, but unwilling (or, perhaps, unsure where to begin) to pry. “Come on. Let’s go watch the others.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [suzanne's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cNQFB0TDfY)   
>  [yu's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NnR16Y1rLI)   
>  [sophie's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hnNFlPhe0)   
>  [esther's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoXLKgX0MgU)   
>  [nava's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k7F4PPtngc)   
>  [olivia's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5lmDMcmW6c)


	6. Heartbeats

In the end, no free skate score was higher than Esther’s. Olivia came close, but still fell nearly three and a half points behind. Her incredible short program score, however, more than bridged the gap, sending her to first place overall. Standing a step below her on the podium, though, Esther felt nothing but joy as she accepted her silver medal. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy to take second place.

After they had posed for the official photos, smiling for the cameras with their arms around each other, Nava crossed over to Esther’s side, giving her a fierce, determined smile. “Don’t get too used to this. I won’t be content to take bronze forever.”

Sophie was the runner-up by a solid three points. Her chances were still very real; all it would take was one stellar performance from her and one less so from someone else. Suzanne was six points behind her. All told, it had been a close race: Yu brought up the rear, trailing Suzanne by a full fifteen points. Esther hadn’t seen her since the announcement of the results, and she couldn’t help but feel her heart go out to her—she’d been there, after all.

“What’s your next event?” Esther asked: with the new arrangement, the photographers took the opportunity to snap another storm of pictures. The three pulled close again, plastering their smiles on.

“NHK Trophy,” she replied. “You?”

“Rostelecom Cup. Japan is lovely. I’ve never been to Sapporo, personally, but I hear good things about it. You should try to sightsee a bit, while you’re there.”

“I’ll try to. Sometimes I get so caught up in everything, I barely recognize where I am.”

“And the ISU doesn’t help when they make us skate on the Sabbath.”

Nava laughed. “Exactly! I’m so glad I’m not the only one anymore.”

The photographers finally began to disperse. Esther, Olivia, and Nava broke ranks and headed for the rink entrance. There, Emanuel was waiting with guards in hand and a smile on his face. “Let’s see it, then.” Esther reached up and unlooped the medal from her neck, passing it over to him.

“Our first accomplishment,” she said.

Emanuel looked a little teary. “It’ll do,” he murmured, giving it back to her.

Her friends found her moments later. “Let me get a picture!” Phichit slid in next to her and snapped a photo of them together; the others joined in, and they all got in a variety of faces at their photographer’s request.

“Look at you!” Leo plucked up her medal, holding it up to the light to better admire it.

She shrugged, grinning. “I did it.”

“That routine was amazing, Esther. You’ve really got an eye for choreography, if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing you’re good at _that_ , because you certainly can’t dress yourself!” Chuenchai tugged at the half-ponytail keeping his hair from his eyes.

“Hey, I told you, I don’t do my costumes!”

“Did you even _look_ at it before today?”

Esther skirted past the spat to Jay, hanging at the rear of the group. “You actually did it,” she said. “I watched you win a medal.”

“You want to wear it?” Esther joked, unstringing it and putting it on Jay. “There.” She pulled her phone and snapped a picture. “Now nobody at Amherst will be able to say you weren’t here when it happened.”

Jay laughed and put the medal back around Esther’s neck. “Are we heading back to the hotel?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna go change out of this first. We’ll have to clear out soon anyway; they’ll be getting ready soon for the ice dancers.” She slipped away, whilst Leo and Chuenchai still arguing about costumes, and slipped into the locker room, long since empty, at that point. She returned with a fresh face, her suit on, things in hand, medal still around her neck. “We’ll have to wade through the press.” She strode forward, handed her garment bag to Emanuel and raised her voice to break into the free-for-all. “Hey, guys. I’m gonna head out. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Chai, I’ll text you. Everyone else, good luck.” She passed out hugs, thanked them again for a final round of congratulations, and waved as she led Jay and Emanuel out.

“You have somewhere to be?” Jay asked, on their way down the stairs—Emanuel walked two steps behind, as he had for the duration of her visit. Esther looked over her shoulder and found him looking at his phone; not paying attention to them.

“Yeah. Someone I’m meeting back at the hotel.”

“Is it that men’s skater you were ogling? The one from Kazakhstan? What was his name…”

“Otabek,” Esther said, quickly, quietly. Jay looked at her, and she flushed. “Remember when I asked you for advice, about what you would do if you wanted to mend fences with someone? Well…a long time ago, when I was last in skating, Otabek and I were…friends. When my career self-destructed, our relationship kind of did too.”

“Wait, that was why you were acting so weird? Because you knew him?” Jay laughed. “I thought you had a crush on him.”

Esther offered a single chuckle. “Yeah…”

“So you’re meeting back at the hotel?” Esther nodded. “That’s good! You’re going to talk things out?”

“That’s my hope.” They broke into the lobby. Esther paused, obligingly, for the first set of reporters to ask her for an interview.

“Congratulations on winning silver.”

“Thank you.”

“What are your plans for the immediate future?”

“I’m going to go back to my hotel room, take a shower, and order room service.” She smiled blandly through the laughter. “Uh, work my program, no doubt. I’ve got a bit of a gap to close; I have a few weeks from now until the Rostelecom Cup, and I’m going to make the most of those.”

“What can you say about your program theme this season? You said at the Luxembourg press conference that it was rebirth.”

Esther nodded, slowly. “It’s true, the theme is rebirth. I’m sure you understand, the person I am now, both on _and_ off the ice—I’m not who I was when I left. Everything I do, from here on out, is going to be different than how it might’ve been before, and I wanted to emphasize that in my skating.”

“And we here can certainly see the change. Congratulations, Esther, it was good to see you here again in the States, even if only for Skate America. Good luck in Moscow.”

“Thank you.” With that, they released her, and the path to the door was clear.

“Do you want to do something tonight?” Esther asked, as she and Jay slid into the back seat.

“I have reading I need to do,” she confessed. “Maybe later? I don’t think I should be up all night with it.”

They returned to the room—Esther gladly stripped and took a long, hot shower, scrubbing until her skin was rosy. She came out wrapped in her towel, donned a fresh set of underwear and looked into her suitcase, which she never bothered to unpack. She chose a pair of dark-wash jeans (to her, they seemed more presentable, somehow), and moved on to staring at the tops she’d brought.

“Jay,” she said, after a long moment. Her friend looked up from her book. Esther held up two garments.

“What do you think—navy sweater, or burgundy?”

“You’re just going to talk to him, I don’t think it matters whether you wear the _blue_ or the _red_ sweater.”

“Jay,” she implored.

Jay sighed. “The blue one.”

Esther put the other one back, and tugged it over her head. “Thank you. If you need anything…” she paused by the door. “Emanuel is right over there, and…you know where to find me.” She lingered, took a deep breath, finally, and got on her way.

 _Okay, Esther. Deep breaths. I thought the hard part was over? God, I really do tell myself stupid shit in the middle of a confidence high._ There were moments where it was easy to forget, that this was her lot in life.

She bounced on her heels in the elevator, but when it opened its doors on the first floor, it was with reluctance that she left. She strode with confidence to the restaurant laid out in the lobby, which doubled as the seating area for breakfast, only to stop dead where the tile met the carpet, rubbing the pad of her finger along her thumbnail. _Is he here?_

Relief, followed by another round of trepidation, washed over her as she spotted him, sitting at a table in the corner. He looked up, as soon as she began to make her way towards him, and he didn’t look away, not as she drew closer, not as she sat down across from him, looked down to fiddle with the edges of her sleeves when the prolonged eye contact threatened to be too much.

“Hey,” she said, barely more than a whisper.

He took long enough to reply that she dared to look up. “Congratulations on your medal.”

“My—oh.” Her eyes darted down to the tabletop again. “Thank you.”

Neither of them said anything more. Esther shifted in her seat. _Come on, Esther. Anything that’ll keep this from being proof that we should’ve just left things where they were._ The silence stretched on. _Maybe not talking to each other is just what we’re good at._

“I’m sorry,” she said. Somehow, she found the courage to look at him—he had his eyes on her. His undivided attention proved too much to bear, had her looking down, again, at the table and tugging, again, at her sleeves. “I…I really hate making excuses, and so sometimes I avoid explaining things, because I don’t want to sound like I’m…you know. But then, sometimes that means people get left in the dark. And…that’s what happened to you. I’m sorry.”

It felt like an eternity before Otabek answered. He chose his words carefully—he always had. “Would you tell me?”

“I—sorry?”

“If you were willing to…” There was a frustrated little crease in his brow—he huffed a short, sharp sigh, and started speaking in Russian. “I want to know what was going on with you. I went this long without an explanation, but now you’re here, and we’re talking to each other again.”

Esther blinked at him, mouth slightly agape. It was a veritable tidal wave, from him. Somehow, though, looking at him wasn’t quite so hard anymore.

“Well…” she cleared her throat, bit lightly on the end of her tongue, and made the switch to Russian as well. The illusion of privacy brought her a small measure of courage. “I’m…sure you saw what happened at Skate America that year.” He nodded, once. “I fucked up. Royally. I mean, I was coming in as the reigning Junior world champion, and I blew it.”

“You were runner-up.”

“Yeah, and then I made it worse. Trophée de France? I came in dead last. I missed the Final by a long shot. And then, the US National Championships—I didn’t even break the top ten.”

“Not everyone has a smooth first season in Seniors.”

“Right,” she muttered, folding her arms, “Some of us just have to content ourselves with bronze at Worlds.”

His eyes narrowed. “You had a bad season. So you quit?”

“Oh, tell me you could turn in the piping hot crock of shit I did in 2013 and go home ready to look at everyone who was counting on you.” She hissed, squeezing at the bridge of the nose. “No, you probably could. You were always…resilient, that way. _God_ , this is fucking stupid. I’m making this sound so much bigger than it is, and I know that it’s not life and death, not even close, but my _stupid_ brain doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, and it never will, and we’re both just going to have to live with it.”

She took a deep breath.

“Yeah, I quit. I fucked up the one thing I was supposed to be good at, the thing that made me worth everyone’s time, and once that was gone, there was nothing left. I fumbled my way through a depression fog for almost three _years_. I forgot that there was a world I lived in, that’s how fucked up I was. Imagine being so out of it that you can’t even realize you want to be dead, just so it’ll be over. And on _top_ of that, I’ve got my _fucking_ mom and dad throwing all their petty, passive-aggressive bullshit at me, disguised as their loving parental guidance, and I’m not sure if they’re even aware of how badly they’re fucking up, and are they still responsible if they aren’t?” She stopped short, tongue tied by the mess of words, trying to fight their way out in half a dozen languages.

“Leaving you behind,” she chose, finally, “was my fault. Bad brain chemicals, shitty parenting—they might’ve created the perfect storm for me to crash, as soon as I lost the one thing I had my whole identity built around. But…you were my friend. The only real one I’d ever had, at that point in my life, and, I should’ve known better than to think that you would judge me.” She lowered her eyes to the table, felt them welling up, but she didn’t bother to stop the tears, even as they started to fall.

“You were always so sure.” Her voice remained strangely calm, even as a tear dripped from her chin to land on one of her hands. “Even when you weren’t. And I…felt like the most miserable failure.” Her voice quivered, threatened to break. She fell silent, kept her eyes fixed on her hands, fidgeting nervously against each other. Otabek shifted in front of her—he unfolded the napkin by his place setting and held it out across the table. “Thanks—” he ignored her starting to reach for it, turned it so he could dab gently at her cheeks. “You don’t have to…” she began. This time, when their eyes met, it was he who had to look away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly, as he lowered the napkin to the table. “I think…I forget. You never called me, but…I never called you, either.” With a small shake of his head, he sighed, closed his eyes. “It was stupid to think it was about me.”

It took a moment, to process what he’d said: then, she let a brief, watery laugh. “Otabek.” She closed the distance, settling her hand over his— _were they always this huge?_ “No. It wasn’t you. You could never…” she took a deep breath. “You’ve never brought me anything but joy.”

For a brief moment, she wondered if it was too much, too honest, but then her breath caught in her chest, because he gave her one of his rare smiles, the _real_ ones. They came over him slow, but looked like the fucking _sun_ coming up, and for a moment it felt like her heart had stopped.

That was when the waiter decided to come by with menus and water. They broke hurriedly apart, wiping eyes, clearing throats, schooling themselves. When he looked at her, though, there was a trace of warmth still in his eyes, like sparks flying up from a bonfire and into the night sky.

“So…would you ever consider forgiving me?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing to forgive.” His eyes flicked, halfheartedly, over the menu. “Would you—”

“Don’t you dare ask me that.”

The menu obscured everything below the bridge of his nose, but she knew the look in his eyes, so achingly familiar to her, as much so as one of her own expressions. Being here, with him, felt like coming home.

“You know,” she said, as they both perused their options. “I saw you skate.” Otabek lowered his menu, enough so that she could see his face. “It was…incredible.”

She could’ve sworn that he colored, faintly. “Thank you,” he said, looking determinedly at his menu. “I watched you, too. Not just yesterday, either.” She looked at him. “I wasn’t brave enough to talk to you, afterwards. Not like you.”

“Oh, I don’t know about—”

The hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth stopped her in her tracks. “You were always the brave one,” he said.

 _Oh._ Esther fell silent, tried to make sense of the pounding of her heart.

“So,” she said, finally. “Tell me what you’ve been up to…since we talked last.”

And Otabek indulged her, talking in a flood of words that slid in and out of Russian and English. He told her about his family: his nieces, Aruzhan and Anara, had been a newborn and a toddler when they’d spoken last, but now they were nearing three and five, and they loved to have stories read to them. His older sister had gotten married, and gap-toothed, pig-tailed little Inzhu was now a junior high schooler who got frustrated with the piano, but was already better at math than him. He told her about the books he’d read, the music he’d found, friends that had drifted in and out. He’d gotten his own apartment in the city, not too far from home, and it was nice to have his own space, even though (she knew) he loved his family more than words could ever say.

He paused in the middle of telling her about the succulents he grew on his windowsill (they were low-maintenance, but nice to look at) and seemed to recede into himself, all of a sudden. “I’m sorry. I’m only talking about myself. I want to hear about you too.”

Esther smiled and shook her head. “I asked.” In truth, she was suffused with warmth—that the notoriously private Otabek Altin would willingly share so much with her meant more than she could say—but on her end, there truly wasn’t much to tell. “I guess…if you wanted to know—”

“I do,” he said.

He’d done it _again_ ; caught her off her guard. “Well…my parents wanted me to go to a private school. I think they were hoping they’d be able to send me off to boarding school and forget I existed. I was sick of doing that, though—the tutors, the special treatment. I just wanted to disappear. Be normal, for once in my life. So I went to public school.”

Otabek gave her a questioning look. She shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. I actually graduated early, last December.” She shrugged. “I already had all of my credits. Most kids stay to walk with their class in June, but…I didn’t really care about that. I only made one friend in school.” She stirred absently at her water with her straw. The ice clinked at the glass; a novelty, after six months in Europe.

“And you didn’t skate at all?” Otabek asked her, “In three years?”

She shook her head. “I had this notion that, if I ever set foot on the ice again, I’d somehow be invalidating the choice I made. Honestly, though, I think I was afraid that if I ever skated, I’d remember how much I really do love it, and I’d end up regretting everything.” She cracked a small smile. “Which turned out to be true, I suppose.” _It would be remarkable how much I could know myself, if I would just listen._ “I guess we just have to swallow our pride sometimes.”

Otabek scraped at the last remnants of his plate. Esther balled up her napkin, bringing it from her lap to the table. “Do you ever think about…when we would sneak out to the bakeries in the North End? You’d always get a biscotti, and I’d get—”

“A zeppola,” he said, quietly. “I remember.”

Esther sat back, smiling. She wondered if Otabek, with all of his insight, knew that those had been some of the best times in her life—going out, just the two of them, into the night, breaking her parents’ imposed diet once a week or so; a small act of rebellion to keep her sane. They would sit and talk for hours; outside when it was warmer, inside when it got cooler. It was where they had really gotten to know each other, where they’d told each other things about themselves that they’d never told anyone else. It was on one such occasion that he’d told her he was moving on at the end of the season, going to train with a new coach in Canada. That one was less happy, but there were others that were brighter spots in her memory: one day in the late summer, when they came straight from the pool, and ate like only people, aching with the full-body hunger induced by swimming, could; Halloween night, in a near-empty movie theater, despairing at the latest mistreatment of Shakespeare—

“Wait,” she jolted, sat up straighter. “Your birthday is coming up soon. Really soon. Like, in a couple of days.”

“A little over a week,” he said.

“Okay, but still less than ten.”

The waiter swung by. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

Impatiently, Esther shook her head. “I’m good.” She shot Otabek a questioning look, and he added, “Just the check. Thank you.”

He left, and Esther turned back to Otabek. “You’re going to turn eighteen. It’s kind of a big deal.”

Otabek shrugged. “I have been looking forward to getting my license.”

Esther sighed. “That’s not what I meant.” The folder was brought by—Esther shifted to take her wallet out of her back pocket, but Otabek held a card out. Their waiter departed, leaving Esther to blush like mad. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.” He tilted his head, peering at her through curious eyes—it was the look reserved for when he had to search her; when he didn’t know her heart with his first glance. “I’ll be with my family, and my friends back home.”

“Yeah, well, _I’m_ not going to see you before then.” In the awkward silence that ensued, their check was brought back for them, and they were wished a good evening. Esther watched Otabek sign the bill, and made up her mind. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” He asked, standing and following her nonetheless.

“Out,” she said. “If I can’t be there with you, I’ll just have to celebrate early.”

Esther led him to the nearest L stop. They rode together in comfortable silence, just like they used to in Boston. They disembarked at the Navy Pier, and she looked around in determination, until she discovered a bakery at last. She perused the glass case, moved to the register, and asked for one of the spice cupcakes, her card already in hand. She turned around, just to make sure he didn’t get any ideas, but he remained content to stand behind her, his scarf arranged perfectly over his jacket.

They walked out a bit; not to the end, but just far enough that they could see the water. There, they found an unoccupied bench—the sun was going down, and it was getting to be late enough that the crowds were clearing, just a little. Esther opened the box from the bakery, sliding it over into his lap. “There you go. No candles, but…make a wish.”

Otabek looked thoughtfully at it, then to her. “Your birthday. It was in July.”

She nodded, slowly. “Yeah.”

“Mine isn’t for a few days yet.” He pushed the box back towards her, so it sat just between them. “So we should celebrate for both of us.”

Esther couldn’t remember if he’d been quite this good at inducing indescribable feelings in her three years ago. As it was, the way he looked at her made it impossible to refuse. “Okay.” She smiled and picked up the included plastic fork, dividing it along the middle. “All right, I split it, you pick your half.” He took the one nearest him, and waited expectantly until she picked up hers.

“Make a wish,” he echoed. The tone and timbre of his voice, this close, was like hot apple cider on a cold night. A little searing, at first, but warming from within. They held eyes, until, by silent agreement, they finished, and took a bite.

“How’d you know spice was my favorite?” he asked her.

“I don’t know. Call it a hunch.” She watched him as he popped the last bit in his mouth, turning to face the sunset as he chewed and swallowed. In that moment, her breath stalled somewhere in her chest. The setting sun cast its light over him, turning his skin from its light brown to deep gold, highlighting the thick lashes around his eyes. There was a dab of icing on the corner of his mouth. He stayed that way, deep in thought, or captivated by whatever he was seeing, for a long moment; long enough for her to take a picture of him that way. Slowly, she lowered her phone, looking thoughtfully at him.

He turned back to her. “You’ve…got a little something.” She gestured at her cheek. “No, the other…” she reached out, carefully took the little smear of apple-cinnamon buttercream from his face. “There.”

She brought her thumb to her mouth, licked it off without thought. They stared at each other, with bated breath, for what felt like forever.

Esther held out her phone to him, showing him the picture. “I took this. Mind if I post it?”

Otabek looked it over. “You can if you want to,” he said. Esther turned the screen back around, and looked it over.

“I think I’ll save it for later,” she decided. “Thanks.” The two of them turned to look out over the water and admire how the sun set it ablaze. “Now it really is like old times, huh?”

He nodded. “Mhm.” Neither of them spoke again until the sun had dipped below the horizon. “Esther.”

“Yeah?” she turned to him, feeling her heart rate pick up, wondering if it was the first time he’d said her name.

He was still looking at the water. “What do you want me to be…to you?”

 _What kind of a question is that?_ She, too, turned to the horizon, as if the answer was there, somewhere across the water. Had she ever given him reason to believe…? “I’ve never wanted you to be anything but yourself.” She turned to him, found him smiling down at his shoes. “What?”

“Let’s go back,” he stood up. “It’s going to get cold soon, and I have my free skate tomorrow.” He offered her his hand, and she allowed him to pull her to her feet.

They rode back, again, in silence. “I missed you,” she said, halfway back to the hotel. The train pulled to a stop, people got on and off. The doors closed, they were on their way again.

“I did too.”

She didn’t speak again until the next stop. “I don’t want us to drift apart again.”

“We won’t,” he replied. “Not this time.”

Esther smiled. She laid her head on his shoulder and looked at their reflection in the opposite window. _I’m glad I decided to talk to you_ , she might have told him. _Me too_ , he might have answered. But neither spoke—they had no need for words. They had been too young, three years ago: too young to understand; to handle it. They were older, now. It would be different this time.

They walked into the lobby together, hesitating only as they came to the elevator. “What floor are you on?” she asked.

“Sixth. You?”

“I’m up on the eighth.”

“I’ll walk you up.” He pressed the button, and they waited. He was close behind as she returned to her door, room 804. She slowed and stopped.

“I’ll be watching you tomorrow,” she promised, keeping her voice down. It was only barely nine, but you never knew with hotels. “I can’t wait.”

Otabek just nodded—they both knew he would give nothing short of the best he was capable of. “Thank you,” he said, “for the cupcake.”

“Thanks for dinner,” she teased, smiling incredulously when _that_ , of all things, made him blush and look at the floor. They both lingered, each unwilling to say goodbye.

“Well,” Esther said, though reluctantly, with finality. “Goodnight, Otabek.”

“Goodnight, Esther.”

That odd shiver ran through her again, at his use of her name. He turned and walked back towards the elevator. Esther stood watching him for a moment longer, before withdrawing her key and retreating at last.

Jay looked up as soon as the door opened. She watched as Esther came inside, quickly abandoning her clothes for pajamas.

“How did it go?”

Esther turned about, nearly tripping as she did so. “What?”

“You’ve got this look on your face, it looks like it went well.” Jay had a book open in front of her, but it wasn’t a textbook, and she had that smug, _I-knew-it_ face on.

Esther indulged her with a smile and rolling eyes, sitting down on her bed. “It did. We talked about it…we were honest with each other. And then…it was like we picked up right before we left off. I still don’t really believe it. It feels too good to be true.”

Jay’s look faded into something more neutral. She turned back to her book. “That’s good.”

Esther burrowed under the covers, lay still and closed her eyes as she tried to let it all sink in. _I’m the Skate America 2016 silver medalist. I have a shot at the Grand Prix final. I’m friends with Otabek again._ She wondered if it would ever feel real, and who she was that she could receive all this and still ask for more.

 

* * *

 

She and Jay arrived early to the Sears Centre in the morning. They met Chuenchai and her flags in the same spot they’d occupied the day before. She waved them down with enthusiasm. “Guang Hong is last in Group One,” she informed them, as they sat down. “Phichit and Leo are in the next group.”

 _And Otabek,_ Esther thought, glancing at the three men on the ice. The first two skaters were probably aware that they weren’t going anywhere this year—nothing short of a miraculous performance would shift the ranking. They proved these predictions true, and cleared the rink for the last of Group One. _Now the real competition begins._

Chuenchai bounced in her seat as Guang Hong took the ice. “I’m so excited,” she whispered, readying her Chinese flag. Already, his costume set him apart from the short program—an open olive shirt, framed in an intimidating black. Esther glanced at his coach, watching closely by the rinkside. _She must be looking to show off his range. We’ll see what he can do._

The music began: it sounded like movie soundtrack, one of the mainstay categories, even though they’d lifted the ban on lyrics the year before. At first, it was solely on traditional instruments, rather reminiscent of Yu’s short program—a gunshot shattered tranquility, brought it up to blood-pounding, breakneck speed. Esther leaned forward, breathed in time with it, clenched her fingers to the time of the guitar, and didn’t notice any of it until the routine was over. Group One was done, and Guang Hong Ji’s combined score had sent him to first place, for the time being.

“That _was_ exciting,” Jay observed, as the hum of chatter began in the arena.

“A pretty far departure from his short program yesterday,” Esther agreed. “We’ll have to see what the others have planned.” Guang Hong might not have been _the_ best, but he was among them.

Phichit was the first of Group Two to go on—he was already dressed to go when they appeared for their warmup. Esther was drawn, immediately, to Otabek; how fiercely his eyes burned. Perhaps it was her new reacquaintance with him, or something else, but now she started seeing other things. _Loosen up a bit. Emanuel would kill me if I made that face on the ice._

She wondered if he had always been that way, as he and Leo departed to make room for Phichit. It could’ve been that she was just now noticing.

“Nice job on this one, too,” Esther leaned over, murmuring into Chuenchai’s ear. If Phichit’s short program costume had been fire, then this was ice: all in white and soft blue, floating around him like a mist. Chuenchai just grinned, silent and focused.

The familiar, movie-musical sound of the previous routine gave way to a more traditional Thai melody. Phichit’s program—all of it—was a love letter to his homeland: it was patently clear, to anyone who watched him on the ice, drawing them in with everything he had, bringing them along until they were right there with him. He was going to take the world by storm someday.

“Oh, what?” Esther said, aloud, when his score appeared. All told, he was a place behind Guang Hong. She covered her mouth, but her brow furrowed. _God, I’m really turning into Emanuel._

“Wait, they put him in second?” Jay tilted her head.

Chuenchai looked vaguely disappointed as well. “I’m happy for Guang Hong,” was all she said. Phichit came out of the kiss and cry, and Chuenchai stood. “Here—will you take this?” She handed Esther her American flag. Esther peered around her, spotted Leo waiting at the edge of the rink.

“Sure thing.”

Chuenchai didn’t reply; she turned and hurried down the stairs, making a beeline for her friend and his coach.

_Representing the United States, Leo de la Iglesia._

The crowd noise was deafening. Esther held out one side of the flag to Jay, who took it and helped her hold it aloft. She waited eagerly for Leo to begin—getting around a lack of quads was easier in a short program, but free skates were trickier. _He’ll have to balance art and strategy._

She knew, less than a minute in, that she needn’t have worried. Though some part of her was aware that he had probably spent as much time on his routine as she had, looking at the final product would make anyone think he was making it up on the spot. It was effortless, charismatic, captivating, and Esther wondered if there would be a men’s skater at the Grand Prix final with no quads to his name. _Coach would just love that._

As he finished, set a new personal best and went rocketing right into first place, it began to look a little more possible. There was only one left, now, who could challenge him.

Catching sight of him at the rink’s edge, Esther’s heart set to pumping, drowning out the chatter of the audience. _Representing Kazakhstan, Otabek Altin._

He was a sight to see, all in white and glittering blue, like some kind of ocean sapphire, some kind of…Regency hero. _Fucking hell,_ Esther thought, swallowing, _since when did I get like this over a dumb costume?_ He looked… _handsome_ , though, in a slightly-different way than his leather-jacket handsome, the prior night.

The routine began with a triple-strike of the chorus. “Oh,” she startled, just as Jay stirred next to her, said, “Is this Beethoven’s ninth symphony?”

It was, in fact; the second movement, to be specific, rearranged for intensity, and his skating met it like a charging ram battering its horns against an opponent. She was breathless, watching him move with the powerful intensity of a blazing bonfire, the deliberate control of a glacier. His hunger and his patience were on display by turns. But he was tight. _So_ tight, more and more obvious as the routine went on, evoking a mirrored clenching in her teeth until he launched for his quad salchow—

He came down unsteadily, extending a hand that he didn’t really need, but it took him out of it.

For today, it was silver. He looked…appeased, from the stands. Acceptable, as first steps went. _It’s too bad he knocked Phichit off the podium…_

“Does Phichit still have a chance?” Jay read her mind, as they watched the suits appear to bestow the medals upon the top three: gold for Leo, silver for Otabek, and bronze for Guang Hong.

Esther nodded. “He does. The top four are all really close. If he does well at his next event, he could qualify. It might depend on what happens with the rest of the pool.” She looked around them—Chuenchai hadn’t yet returned, and Esther still had her flag. “Come on. They’ll be heading off the ice soon.”

They made their way out to the lobby, where a few skaters were having interviews conducted—she spotted Phichit, a few paces away, and stopped short of the range of the cameras, to wait until he was finished.

“I’m a little disappointed,” he admitted, magnanimously, “But my competitors are all very talented, and they’ve worked very hard. I’m not counting me out just yet!”

The interview concluded. Esther made her way over, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the journalists were a safe distance away. “They underscored you.”

He shrugged. “There’s not much we can do about it. It isn’t by too much, at least—the best I can do now is give them a show they won’t forget at the Cup of China.”

Esther’s mouth twitched into a fond smile. “I’m sure you will.” She handed the flag back to Chuenchai. “Here, we kept it safe for you.”

“Thank you.”

She looked to the last person she hadn’t acknowledged, took in a quick, deep breath. “Mr. Cialdini.”

“Please,” he said, with a shake of his head and a wave of his hand, “call me Celestino.” He continued: “I heard you medaled yesterday. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m happy that you were able to find someone to coach you.” At first, Esther was puzzled, cautious, but he really did seem sincere. “It seems that it’s a partnership that works well for you.”

She relaxed. “Yes, it does.” She turned to Phichit. “Anyone seen Leo yet?”

“I think the press still has its talons in him.” He pointed, and Esther followed until she spotted him, beside his coach as she spoke to a suited representative of one network or another. _Good Morning America, or Ellen DeGeneres?_

Not far from him, Otabek was standing near the wall, conversing with his own coach, back turned to them. “I’ll be right back,” she said, already on her way. She worked her way through the crowd until she could tap him on the shoulder. “Hey,” she smiled, and before either of them could say more, she’d wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug he returned almost as quickly. “I’m so happy for you.”

His “Thanks,” was muffled into her ear, but she caught the trace of a little smile as they released each other. He stepped back, remembering himself, and gestured. “My coach, Lee.”

“Esther Markowitz.” She shook his hand.

“Right, you’re Gabriel and Leah’s kid.” He missed the tensing in Otabek’s shoulders, but then, most people would. _Emanuel can read me like a book._ “I skated at the same time as your parents, for a bit—I retired the year after they got into pairs. Good thing, too; we really didn’t stand a chance.” He laughed. “And you take right after them.”

Esther took a deep breath, maintaining her plastered-on smile. _God, I hope not._ “Yep.”

“Well,” he patted Otabek’s shoulder. “Are you heading back now, or will you call a cab later? Don’t forget, you’ve got the exhibition tonight, you should rest up before then.”

“Go on. I’ll be there in a minute.” Lee nodded, and with a final shoulder pat, dismissed himself. Otabek turned to Esther, a vaguely pained look on his face. “He’s a good coach. He didn’t—”

“I know,” she cut him off, saving them the time of him trying to put something they already understood into words. “I’m guessing you met him in Canada?”

“Yeah. I started working more with him, my last year there. We made it a full-time partnership.”

“Well, it looks like it’s working for you,” she said, thinking of Celestino, but more so of Emanuel, how her running commentary during Otabek’s performances was beginning to sound more and more like him. _Boy, loosen up your face, you look like you’re marching off to war._

“I can’t believe I missed that,” he spoke, out of nowhere. “Looking at the replay…I was fine.”

“Otabek,” she squeezed his wrist. He fell silent so quickly, the noise of the lobby was suddenly much louder. The look in his eyes struck her: not just the depth of their expression, but the bright flecks amid the dark brown, like glimmering light on the water, like the sun setting on his face, like…

_Citrine._

“It was a mistake. You’re not going to make it again.” She let him go, and tapped at the silver medal on his chest. “You came damn near to first place today.” Standing there, she felt like she should’ve said something else, but instead she turned to the door, swallowed. “Your coach is probably waiting.”

“See you at the exhibition.”

“Yeah.” She watched him go, returning to her friends as he headed for the door. By now, Leo and Guang Hong had joined in, and a round of group selfies was taking place. By the time she reached them, she was managing a smile. “Great job, everybody! Who’s excited for the gala?”

A resounding cry of affirmation was her answer. “I can’t wait to show you guys what I came up with for my exhibition routine!”

_Of course. We’ll get to see Leo free of all competitive regulations._

“I wish I could stay,” Jay sighed.

“There’s a livestream!” Guang Hong offered, helpfully.

“Yeah, and the routines usually get put on YouTube pretty soon after,” Phichit chimed in. “Chai and I have a YouTube channel! It’s PhiChai, like our names. You should check it out. We always do a video after competitions.”

“I’ll check it out,” Jay agreed. “You guys have been so nice to me while I’ve been here. I’m glad I got to visit.”

Once it was understood that she was leaving soon, Jay was enveloped in a group hug and told to come back soon, and that she should visit Colorado Springs, Beijing, and Bangkok, in no particular order. They parted, with promises to see Esther at the exhibition that night, and the two departed to call their cab.

On the ride back, in the hotel room, they were mostly silent—two introverts, recharging their batteries. On the train to the airport, they reminisced, and all too soon, they had arrived at the security checkpoint. They stopped, looking at the terminal beyond like it lay across the ocean. In a way, Esther supposed, it did.

“Bye,” Esther hugged her. “Good luck at college.”

“I’m going to watch your other events.”

“You should come visit me during the off-season.”

“Where does that fit in with Colorado Springs, Beijing, and Bangkok?” she joked. They laughed, and Jay fell silent, with a small smile. “You know…I was kind of worried, before I came here.”

Esther frowned. “About what?”

She shrugged. “That it wouldn’t be like it used to. You’re a big-shot figure skater now. I didn’t know if there would be any room for me in your life.”

Esther felt her heart squeeze, her throat constrict with sudden tears. “Jay,” she said, when she could speak again, “You were there at the lowest point of my life. You’ll always have a place in it.”

They hugged, again, and Esther shed a few of her tears. “I’ll come visit you in Luxembourg first,” Jay promised.

Esther stood and watched her go through security. Once on the other side, Jay waved. Esther waved back, and stayed until she couldn’t see her anymore. Only then did she turn around and start back towards the train. The trip back to the hotel felt much longer, alone.

All along, Esther was left with the lingering feeling that she’d forgotten something important. It was only when she started to think about the exhibition that it hit her, _Otabek,_ and remembered.

With a brief series of Google searches and a courtesy check for time zones, Esther had the number to dial by the time she disembarked at her stop. Switching back to French was easier than she anticipated—it was like slipping on a comfortable pair of pants at the end of the day. “Hello. Yes, I was in your store a few months ago, and something caught my eye while I was there. I wanted to see if you still had it…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [yu's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E6b3swbnWg)   
>  [esther's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erOEatu5aH8)   
>  [sophie's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaB9lrHPRZ4)   
>  [suzanne's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxHkLdQy5f0)   
>  [nava's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtfKlmpb7_w)   
>  [olivia's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luhnj7ZPWL4)


	7. Moonlight Sonata

Esther knocked on the adjoining door as soon as she returned to her room. Emanuel issued a muffled response from the other side and opened up moments later. “Jay is on her way, then?”

She nodded, and he stepped aside to let her come in. “Are you already getting ready for the gala?”

“Of course. As your coach, I should look presentable.”

Esther cocked her head and watched him carefully gel his hair. Emanuel was always _presentable_ —he was fussy like that—and being a coach meant he was usually wearing a suit anyway. But the gala was a little bit lax, and while some of the others might’ve been taking the opportunity to let loose, it seemed that he’d chosen to take it to a different, no less intensive height. He’d chosen a very form-fitting, long-sleeved black v-neck, one that showed just how in-shape he was for his age. His trousers were cut likewise; his shoes were sharp, and probably Italian leather. There was a strong smell of aftershave emanating from the bathroom: Emanuel was the sort of man who was dark enough to have a distinct five o’clock shadow by the appropriate time, regardless of how attentively he shaved in the morning. This particular occasion was apparently worth the afternoon touch-up.

She flicked her eyes to the side; glanced into his open closet and looked pointedly at the suit there. _It’s not like he’s going to be wearing this to the banquet_. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to impress somebody.”

“I suppose it’s a good thing that you _do_ know better,” he replied, primly, picking up a bottle of cologne, tilting his head up and spraying once over his throat. “In all our time together, when have you known me to express interest in anyone, man or woman?”

Esther sniffed at the air. “is that…bergamot?”

“Yes,” he said, pleased. “You have a good nose, too. I’m not surprised.” Giving himself a once-over in the mirror, he seemed satisfied. He turned to her, then. “Come here, let me look at you.”

Esther complied, let him place his hands on her shoulders and do just that. “I feel like I’ve barely seen you since we got here.”

Emanuel offered a bittersweet smile. “I’m your coach. You’ve been with friends. As it should be.” He turned from her, revitalizing into his usual self. “I assure you, I still loathe being in this country, and I’m glad we’ll be leaving it tomorrow. With any luck, we’ll get better assignments next year. I’d even take Canada over this.” Esther chuckled and shook her head at him, about to ask him if he knew about Worlds, but he fell silent and turned back to her. “You know…I want to say again, how proud I am. Not just that you won the silver medal, but of how far you’ve come. I remember the girl who fainted at my rink, and I can barely believe that you’re the same person.” He paused, thinking. “But then, I suppose you aren’t. You’ve been reborn.”

They faced each other in quiet happiness, until he glanced at his watch and told her, “You should get ready for the exhibition. I like to see all of the performances.”

“The exhibition is a bit of an event, for the coaches,” he informed her, in the car. “Of course, many of us were skaters, once. We get separated by our events, so the gala is a reunion, of sorts.” He turned to face her. “And of course, we do like to show off our skaters.” He grinned. “How are you feeling about the routine?”

Esther had chosen the music, and Emanuel had done the choreography. It was a meeting of their minds. “I’m excited to show it.”

Emanuel turned to their cab driver. “Esther is a skater. The best I’ve ever trained.”

“You might be a little biased, Coach.”

“ _Well_. You know, she’s also shown promise as a choreographer. So well-read, too. Speaks half a dozen languages, plays almost as many instruments, sings beautifully. An excellent cook.”

“ _Emanuel_ …”

They reached the Sears Centre with plenty of time to spare—considering, especially, that the women were the second-to-last group to go on, just before the men. Emanuel started looking around as they entered the stands. “You should go on. Find your friends.”

“Okay,” she said, looking as well. _Did you really mean all of that,_ she thought to ask, but just as she opened her mouth, they were intercepted by one Celestino Cialdini.

“Emanuel!” Esther watched with swiftly-lifting eyebrows as he wrapped an arm around her coach’s shoulders, and as Emanuel regarded him with a bizarrely complex expression, one that suggested both casual warmth and careful formality.

“Celestino.”

“It’s been too long, it feels like forever. Come on, we’re this way—” he paused to point out to Esther, “I saw Phichit over there.”

Esther spotted them from afar. “Right…thanks.” She watched Celestino steer Emanuel away, thoroughly intrigued, but filed it away for the time being. She headed over and up towards the group, slowing once she realized that it looked a bit bigger than usual. Suzanne and Olivia were there, leaning on the railings and talking to Leo. She wondered if it was too late to turn around and sit with Emanuel, eavesdrop on whatever was going on with him and his coach friends, but Suzanne spotted her. “He _llo!_ Esther, come over here, it’s been so long!”

“Yep,” Esther agreed. _Not long enough, if you ask me._

“Things have been _so_ quiet at the rink since you left.” _Three years ago_. “Maybe I should be thanking you. Your parents are finally paying attention to the rest of us!”

 _And that worked out so well for you, fifth place._ Esther forced her sickliest sweet smile. “Sorry. They can be a little…restrictive.”

“Actually, I think they’ve loosened up.” Suzanne went to sit down. Olivia took the place next to her, with Leo and Guang Hong filing in at the end. Chuenchai beckoned her up into the row above, where she sat with Phichit. Esther slid gratefully in next to her. “They’ve learned to loosen the reins. Maybe it’s because I’m not _their_ kid. You know?” She turned in her seat. “Olivia and I have been having the time of our lives. I just _love_ the city, you know—each one has its own character, and they’re just so easy to get lost in. We come here to make art, but it’s off the ice where we find our inspiration.”

Esther fought the urge to roll her eyes. Suzanne and Olivia didn’t look like they were having sex, which left Suzanne’s other modus operandi; what she called “an exploration of a faraway place as an anonymous visitor, one whose presence is, by nature, ephemeral and impermanent—a status that lets you to truly feel the essence of a place, to partially fuse with it and bring a piece of it back with you.”

Esther called it sightseeing.

As Suzanne busied herself with talking to Leo, Esther settled into her chair. She let off her quietest irritated sigh and dug for her phone.

 

Esther sighed and slid it back into her pocket. Suzanne turned around again, looking positively devious. “Esther, do you remember when we both went to the summer camp at Leo’s rink?”

 _Hey, Suzanne, remember when you tried to go to the 2013 US Championships banquet with your tits falling out of your dress, and my parents gave you the closest thing to one of my lectures I’ve ever seen anyone else get?_ “Yes.”

“That was _so_ much fun. Remember the night we snuck out on the roof with the peach schnapps?”

Esther hadn’t drunk any of it; she’d tried to content herself looking at the stars, sitting on the edge of the group and feeling more and more an outsider as the game of _Never Have I Ever_ had gone deeper and deeper. “Maybe we should stick to general interest. Not everyone was there.”

“No, I love hearing these stories!” Olivia countered.

“It was so funny,” Suzanne touched her shoulder, “We all had the biggest crush on Leo.”

Esther looked up, frowning. _Wait—_

“Nobody was as bad as Esther, though. She was so in love with him. It was really sweet. I convinced her to tell him—he wasn’t interested in me, but maybe he would’ve liked her, you know?”

Esther’s throat felt like it was closing up: she swallowed, tried to breathe in, but it shook as hot tears welled in her eyes. Suzanne had been the ringleader of the girls that had convinced her to confess to Leo. She had come across as an older, wiser friend, encouraging her to be honest and have no regrets. _And it turns out, you were only willing to do that once he knew he wasn’t biting._ How many of them had he turned down before her?

Quickly, she stood up. “Excuse me,” she snapped, leaving before anyone could ask her why. She rubbed angrily at her eyes as she reached the arena entrance, and nearly crashed into Otabek.

“Hey,” he said, looking puzzled. “Are you all right?”

Esther refused to meet his eyes. The hot flash of anger was departing, leaving her to crumple. “I hate her,” she said, shakily, pressing the end of her jacket sleeve to her face to soak up the tears.

Otabek had a sudden, fierce look in his eye. “What did she say?” He pulled her into the tunnel, fully out of view of anyone in the stands around them.

“It’s so stupid,” she sniffed, “I shouldn’t even care anymore. She told everyone about how I liked Leo when we were doing a program at his rink, and she was the one who told me I should tell him I liked him, but she tried to come onto him first.” Anger was beginning to take precedence again. “She’s just so _insufferable_ , and it feels like I’m the only one that sees it that way, everyone else just _loves_ her.”

“Do you want to go back?”

She thought about it, took a deep, quivering breath, and nodded. “I’m done letting her run me out of places.” She wiped her eyes again, and led the way back, this time, with Otabek in tow. She resumed her place, and he sat down next to her.

“Otabek!” Leo turned in his seat. “You finally made it out! Good to see you again.”

“Hi, Leo.”

“How have you been, man? I saw you moved back to Almaty.”

While the two caught up, Esther chanced a glance at Suzanne. She (and Olivia, for that matter) paid her no attention—both of them were looking at Otabek, though where Olivia was intrigued, Suzanne was _interested_. Esther’s fingers tightened, where they were tucked into the crooks of her elbows. _I don’t think so._

“Where are the other ladies?” she asked, forcing the two’s attention back onto her.

“Yu’s staying in her room,” Guang Hong shared. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

 _Not feeling well about the results, more like. Tactfully put. Unlike_ some _people._ “How about Nava and Sophie?”

“I don’t know about Nava,” Olivia told her. “She might be coming later, like Sophie.”

Suzanne had already stopped paying attention. “Otabek Altin, is that really _you_? You guys, Otabek used to train at our rink—what was it, three years ago? You look so _different_.” Before anyone could respond, she’d climbed over Olivia, Leo, and Guang Hong so she could come up and take the seat on Otabek’s other side. “I barely recognize you!” She wrapped brazen hands around his bicep, squeezing. “I guess you’ve done some growing up since then. But then, Esther always did keep you to herself while you were there.” She shot a teasing look around his chest. “You’d think her parents’ undivided attention would’ve been enough.”

Otabek gently disentangled his arm. Suzanne settled back into her seat, undeterred. “If I had known you were here, I would’ve come to see the men.” She leaned forward, into his personal space. Otabek budged. “Did you watch the ladies?”

“I went to watch Esther.” Esther covered her mouth, hiding a smile. On her other side, Phichit and Chuenchai were goggling at the exchange.

“Did you see me? I’ve been so excited about this routine. Gabriel and Leah have been _dying_ to do their Swan Lake short program, and this year I was finally ready. Isn’t it just amazing?”

“Tchaikovsky in figure skating is a cliché,” Otabek observed. “A performance has to present a truly compelling interpretation of the material to rise above it.”

“Exactly!” Suzanne plowed ahead with confidence. Esther stifled her laughter into her hand. Phichit and Chai turned in to each other, whispering. The lights began to lower, and the fanfare began.

“I think they’re getting ready to start,” Esther observed. Otabek, not that he’d been facing anywhere remotely near Suzanne’s direction, turned ostensibly toward the rink, but mostly towards her. She smiled at him, feeling warmth blooming somewhere under her heart. _Is this what it feels like to be someone’s first choice?_ His arm came up behind her and rested on the back of her chair. The warmth turned to a frantic beat.

The gala began with the ice dancers. Esther had always admired them for their grace, but it was never something she felt she could do. Pairs had never been attractive to her—whether that was because her parents had done it, or because she’d never met anyone she could imagine skating beside…she looked out of the corner of her eye at Otabek, but he was focused on the performances.

 _It’s the skirt rule,_ she decided.

Pairs followed. “You guys have _got_ to see Ciao Ciao’s old performance videos,” Phichit intoned, as the bronze medalists prepared to take their places. “Skating in the eighties was _wild_.”

Esther wondered if Celestino and his partner had ever placed above her parents. _I hope he kicked their asses. In front of everyone. At Worlds._ She thought, again, of how strange it was, that she’d barely seen them for the entire competition. Perhaps it wasn’t too early now to suppose they might leave her alone… _but what luck have I ever had to make me think that would really happen?_

The top pair finished their performance—it was the ladies’ turn. “I’ve got to go get ready.”

“Good luck, Esther,” Chai said, and the others echoed her. Otabek stood and stepped all the way into the aisle to let her through. They exchanged a wordless look, and she left him with Suzanne to head rinkside.

“How’s Ciao Ciao?” she deadpanned, as she met Emanuel, looking nearly as grim as she felt.

“As cheerfully oblivious as ever,” he replied, brightly.

“What the hell is going on between you two?” Esther prodded. “I mean, he was in pairs, so it’s not like this is a rivalry thing—”

Nava was taking the ice. “I’ll tell you later.”

Nava’s exhibition was as energetic as Esther had come to expect, but this was a more positive, exuberant display. It suited her extraordinarily well; perhaps, one day, her performance would grow into it.

Then, it was her turn. “Go on.” Emanuel took her jacket and sent her off with a pat on the shoulder. Esther took the ice, spreading her arms for the crowds. _I wonder what brilliant exhibition I kept Suzanne from showing off today_. As she took her place, assumed her pose, and waited, she took a final, deep breath: _I hope you’re watching this._

Her costume, for this routine, was almost exceedingly simple: a black, long-sleeved leotard that bared her shoulders. That was, at least, what it looked like, as the music began and propelled her into motion. The blacklight filters were slid into place, revealing the whorling spirals of glittering stars, splashed across her like a nebula.

It got the reaction they’d been hoping for: a gasp rang through the stadium, and sent the crowd higher. Suzanne had always been her competitor: for medals, her parents’ attention, and, apparently, boys. In Suzanne’s mind, there was no one better-suited than she to display the elements of classical figure skating.

 _Maybe she’s right,_ Esther thought, before she took off for a triple axel that almost cleared the fence. _I always did think my way was better._

She finished with a flourish, bowing to the audience as the normal lights came back on, skating out to the edge. She met Emanuel there, but her brows knitted at the neutral look he wore. “Was it not good?”

“It was fine,” he said. “Just…different, from how it usually is. We can talk about it later.”

Sighing, Esther returned to her friends, more confused and irritated than she had been to begin with. Otabek greeted her with a small smile as she sat down beside him once more. She didn’t return it, and he didn’t say anything, just engulfed her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Olivia’s routine began right after that, but Esther didn’t remember anything, because he kept holding her hand, didn’t let her go until Guang Hong was about to go out for his.

“Good luck,” she whispered, as he stood to go take his place. He just flashed her a thumbs-up, finally evoking a small smile.

The flash of good humor faded quickly. Suzanne slid into the seat he had just vacated, leaning in to whisper with Esther, as if they were best of friends. “Puberty hit him like a truck, huh?” The beginning of Guang Hong’s routine effectively silenced her, but it gave Esther a full two to three minutes to sit and stew. When he had finished, while the ice was being cleared for Otabek, Suzanne turned to her like she was ready to gossip again.

“I don’t think you said more than four words to him while he was in Boston.” Esther’s voice, to her own ears, sounded perfectly level; cold as the ice she kept her eyes fixed on. “Back then you probably thought he was a stuck-up loner who never had any fun, but now that he’s hot I guess you think frowning is sexy.” She faced her, now, lowered her voice so it was only the two of them. “Otabek has huge, dorky glasses that he wears at home, when he takes his contacts out; he keeps plants on his windowsill, he has the same thing for breakfast every day, and I know he must look exciting from the outside, but someone like you is going to be bored of him in an instant.”

There was no way Otabek could be remotely interested in her—Suzanne was flighty, always running off in search of her newest fancy, and Otabek was like _her_ , searching for stability, a safe place to land. He didn’t like Suzanne, but it didn’t change how unwilling Esther found herself to ever allow him to be hurt.

“So _don’t_ try your bullshit on him.”

Suzanne looked utterly dumbfounded. Esther just turned back to the ice, folded her arms and waited for Otabek’s routine to begin.

She knew it for what it was, at the first stroke of the piano keys. Unbidden, a smile crept over her. _Yes._ This was utterly Otabek. With the pressures of competition shed, he was more relaxed, just slightly—his characteristic terseness was present, but the tightness of the music fed into it, made it look more natural, more like a part of his performance. At the end of two and a half minutes, Esther finally felt as if she could breathe again, and was silent with the same confused, formless jumble of thoughts that he always left her with.

She made her decision, standing and making her way down to the rinkside. She didn’t see him down below. _He must have gone to the locker rooms already._ It was Leo’s turn to perform, though, so she stayed there.

Leo’s exhibition routine was his best work yet. She laughed in recognition when the music started, spent the time shifting peppily from side to side as she watched him go. Leo had been put in the world to be a force for good, and in times like these, it showed so clearly. Just watching him was enough to dredge her up and out of her cloudy mood, have her smiling again. His performance capped off the gala—he hugged his coach first thing off the ice, and when he spotted her hanging nearby, he had one for her too. “Leo, that was amazing! I think that one is my favorite so far.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he replied, a little bashfully, “It was inspired by you.”

Esther gaped at him, wiped blank by the admission. “It…was?”

“Yeah!” he nodded, as if it were obvious. “You came back. After everything, you decided that you weren’t going to let it stop you, and…look at you now.” He grinned. “How could someone _not_ be inspired by you?”

Esther had no proper response for that, except to hug him again.

“Hey,” he said, quietly, as they broke apart, slinging an arm around her shoulder to keep them close. “I’m sorry about what Suzanne did earlier. Talking about that in front of everyone. It wasn’t cool.”

“Yeah, well…you don’t have to apologize. She was the one who did it.”

He shook his head. “But I didn’t say anything. I think…Suz can be really fun to be around, but she doesn’t always think about how the things she does might affect other people. I didn’t really understand that until now. I could tell you weren’t happy when she was there, and I guess what I’m saying is, I get it now. I’m sorry I didn’t before.”

“Oh, Leo…” Esther hugged him, for the third time. The others found them, and though Guang Hong, Phichit, and Chuenchai approached immediately, Suzanne and Olivia hung back. Esther felt a brief stab of embarrassment: in the moment, sharp words had seemed appropriate. Still, she found she didn’t feel much like apologizing.

She turned, and saw Emanuel hanging by the door, looking her way. “Hey, I gotta go,” she spoke, breaking into the chatter. “See you guys at the banquet?” They sent her off with a chorus of agreement. Esther fell in step beside Emanuel, and together they exited the building and met their car at the curb.

When the door was closed behind them, their seatbelts buckled and the ride back to the hotel began, Emanuel spoke. “Skating from anger is never a good idea. It can make you sloppy, it can break up your presentation, but most importantly, it makes you prone to mistakes.” He gave her a serious look, one that reached deep in her and froze her lungs.

_He’s disappointed in me._

He looked back ahead. “What happened?”

Esther sighed. “My parents’ student. Suzanne. She’s…”

“Like her teachers?” he guessed.

“Not exactly. But…she’s not really my best friend.”

Emanuel kept his arms folded over his chest. “If you’re going to keep skating, this won’t be the last time you run into Suzanne, or whoever else your parents end up bringing to competition. You can’t let it affect your concentration.”

A flash of irritation surged through her. “It was just the exhibition.”

“Don’t tell me you’re satisfied with having done less than your best,” he retorted. It stung, nothing if not for its veracity. She opened her mouth, wanted to say something just as cutting, but came up empty—and so, she faced away from him, watched her window for the remainder of the trip. They took the elevator in silence, and returned to their rooms.

Ten minutes after this, Emanuel knocked on the adjoining door. “It’s open,” she called, flatly. She had laid on her bed when she entered, and her back was to their shared wall, so she didn’t see him as he entered, crossed the floor and sat on the end of her bed.

“I’m not unhappy with you,” he told her. “You’ve done a wonderful job at your first competition in three years.” He paused, perhaps waiting for a reply. Esther didn’t move. “I push you because I’m your coach. I know what you’re capable of and I want everyone else to see that. They don’t have the benefit of practice after practice, like I do. They don’t _know_ you like I do.” His hand alighted on her elbow. “What happened between you and Suzanne?”

Esther sighed, shifted until she could sit up beside him. “She’s a year older than me. I liked her, at first, and we were sort of friends. We’re total opposites, though; if she said go, I’d say stop; she’s fluid where I’m fixed, and the other way around. I guess that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be friends with someone, but I think she saw herself as kind of a mentor, and I…didn’t. I was just looking for a friend.” Emanuel nodded, but remained silent and attentive. “Anyway, she was rebellious. My parents would always tell us to watch her, because she’d sneak away to…fraternize, with skaters from other teams. Raiding the liquor cabinet, dressing inappropriately, showing up late because she was off doing her own thing…stuff like that. She tried to pull me into it, but…I wasn’t comfortable with it. I _wanted_ to be like her; living life for myself, never caring about what other people thought, so I’d go with her, and it just made me feel horrible. So I decided to stop hanging out with her. She pestered me for a while, but eventually, she lost interest.”

Emanuel exhaled, slowly. “She sounds like a nightmare.”

Esther chuckled weakly. “Yeah. I mean…she’s talented, no doubt. Just…a handful, in person.” She shook her head. “I wanted people to pay attention to me like they did to her. They were always interested, she could entertain like no one else. But…I’m just not like that, I guess. People were only interested in me when I skated, and then they’d ask me about it, but…I don’t know how to explain it. I just…do it. And then they figure out I’m a terrible conversationalist who can’t give more than three-word answers unless I’ve had days to think about it beforehand.”

“Hmm,” Emanuel wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “At least I can trust you alone with reporters.”

To her surprise, Esther found herself laughing. “I wouldn’t get too comfortable.” She paused. “I’m sorry. For…sulking. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, seeing them again, but…I don’t think I realized just how hard it would really be. The more I think about the last three years, the more I talk about them—about my whole life, really…I go back and forth blaming them, and wondering if I really _can_ blame them…”

She trailed off. Emanuel squeezed her shoulder again. They sat in silence.

 _Enough of that._ “All right, spill it. What’s the deal with you and Phichit’s coach?”

“Celestino?” Emanuel said, sounding surprised. “Oh. Yes. Well, as you might have guessed, our careers coincided. There was a brief period in the ‘89-90 season where we were…well. I suppose you would say ‘involved’.”

Esther stared at him, mouth agape. “You,” she said, disbelieving, “and Celestino? You were a thing?”

“It was nothing _formal_ ,” he stressed. “We were young, and had a passing impression that we cared for each other. I wasn’t even sure what I felt, but everyone else around me was having whirlwind flings at one competition or the next, so I supposed I should try it out too.”

Esther found she couldn’t look at him anymore, fearing, oddly enough, that he’d be able to divine how deeply she empathized with a single look.

“It didn’t go anywhere. Obviously. I realized that I wasn’t interested in sex, and romance wasn’t very compelling either. So we parted ways, friends.”

“So,” she dared to turn back to him, “You’re asexual?”

“Yes,” he said, simply.

“Oh.” Esther looked down at the rug again, suddenly brimming with questions. _How did you know? Was it because you didn’t like it? Or was it because it felt wrong, even though you did? Did you ever wonder if it was because of him, that it’d be different with someone else?_ Instead, she just swallowed. “I kind of figured.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You’re not the first one I’ve known. I seem to meet a lot of them, for some reason.”

Emanuel chuckled at her. “Well. I need to go prepare for the banquet. You should too. I have a few potential sponsors I’d like for you to meet, but I won’t take up all of your time, I promise.” He closed the door behind him, and left her to herself.

The silence quickly proved too loud: Esther dug for her phone and put on a playlist, singing along as she showered, blow-dried her hair, and pulled her dress from the closet. She’d chosen it a few weeks before; she hadn’t even been looking, but had passed it in a window display and stopped for a longer look. It was knee-length, form-fitting, long-sleeved and black, and completely backless (which, thankfully, left her with no zipper to fight with). She checked her reflection in the mirror, not quite able to believe it was her.

Emanuel came over to adjust the fit of her dress, sit her down in the chair and give her the light application of makeup they’d agreed on. _It’s gross, and I’ll only tolerate it for performances,_ she’d said. Somehow, he’d managed to convince her to let him do her eyes, brows, and lips. He stepped back to look critically over his work. “Perhaps just a bit of highlight on the—”

“No,” she said, getting up and going for her shoes.

He opened the door for her on her way out, which she rolled her eyes at. _Put on a dress, and suddenly every man in a five-mile radius wants to personally ensure you don’t break any nails…_ She made a point of pressing the elevator button. It arrived; they entered together. “You look stunning,” he told her.

Esther turned away, embarrassed. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

The doors closed; the lift bore them down.

Emanuel had chosen a black suit for the evening; a departure from the charcoal and navy he’d worn for the performance days. His tie was black too—she wondered if he’d planned on matching. As they exited at the lobby, he offered her an arm, and she took it. _It has to be his European sensibilities talking_ , she decided. Besides, it was easier to walk into the ballroom when she didn’t have to do it alone.

She looked around until she spotted a group off to the left, conversing in a tight pack—the boys in dark suits, Chuenchai standing out in a dreamy blush pink evening gown. Emanuel patted the hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. “Go on, say hello. I’ll find you in a moment.”

Esther smiled gratefully and made a beeline for the others, touching Leo’s shoulder to break into the circle. “Hey, guys.”

Chuenchai gasped and walked a quick circle around her. “Esther, your _dress_!” She returned to her front and clasped her hands. “You have good taste on _and_ off the ice.”

 _Right. This is what girls do, when we go out; compliment each other’s outfits._ “Thank you. I like yours too.”

“It’s a good look,” Leo agreed, slotting in at her side for a one-armed hug. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too. Coach is going to get me to make the rounds soon, but he let me say hi first. After that, I think I’m free. You all look great.” She looked around them, spotted a few figures hanging back by the wall. “Hey, Guang…is that your rinkmate?”

“Uhh…oh, yeah, that’s Yu.”

Leo nudged at his side. “Go get her. No reason for her to be by herself.”

“Give me a minute.” Esther excused herself and made a beeline for the other wallflower. Nava was hovering near the door, fiddling with her hands. “Hey, there.”

“Oh,” Nava brightened considerably. _What I would’ve given to have someone talk to me at one of these…_ “Hi, Esther.”

“First Senior banquet, huh?”

She nodded.

Esther inclined her head back towards the others. “Come on, let me introduce you to some people.”

Nava followed her gratefully back, and kept up admirably well with everyone’s names. Chuenchai complimented her dress, too—it was a blue and silver gown, and it was truly lovely. “I remember you!” she said, when Guang Hong introduced Yu. “From Juniors.” So far, Esther had only seen Yu look severe, but for the first time, she seemed to soften at Nava’s offered hand of friendship.

Once the requisite compliments had been exchanged, she scanned the immediate area. “Has anyone seen Otabek?”

“He was just here. I think he said something about going for a drink…”

Esther followed everyone’s eyes, and found him standing near the end of the refreshment table, holding a small plastic cup of water, cornered by Suzanne. Even at this distance, he looked bored.

“Excuse me.” Esther headed their way.

“Otabek,” she broke in, as she came close. He turned to her, looking terribly grateful. “Suzanne.”

Suzanne said a brief “hello,” and left them. Esther sidled into the space where she had been standing, and faced Otabek more fully, drinking in the sight of him—his suit was an attractive dark soot grey, cut perfectly to his physique. He looked terribly handsome, and smelled, attractively, of sandalwood. “Hi,” she said, quietly.

“You look beautiful,” he told her.

Esther felt her breath catch, and before she could think: “So do you.”

That was when Emanuel found them. “There you are.” He shot a curious glance at Otabek before he touched her shoulder. “Right this way. I’d like you to meet Joan Allen. She’s a representative for Champion…”

Thankfully, making polite small talk was a particular, cultivated skill, at this point in Esther’s life. When Emanuel took up the conversation with whoever it was, she would peer over her shoulder, back at Otabek. The first few times, he was watching her, and she’d have to look quickly away, but Leo soon approached him, and they started talking to each other.

“Still with me?” Emanuel said, after the third or fourth or fifth conversation—she’d lost count fairly quickly.

“What?” she looked up.

He chuckled. “All right, you’ve fulfilled your obligations. Go on, have fun.” Esther smiled gratefully, and turned towards her friends. “Not too much fun!” he called, to her retreating back. She quickened her steps in response, skirting the dance floor to reunite with the others.

“Coach says I’m free,” she announced, returning to the fold. She still marveled at how quickly she was accepted; how _welcome_ it was to be included. She wasn’t there long, however—not even long enough, in fact, to catch the thread of the conversation—when there was a light touch, placed respectfully over the covered portion of her shoulder. She caught a whiff of sandalwood as she turned her head— _Otabek._ Up close, his eyes were mesmerizing.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked, in a low, soft voice that penetrated beneath the music playing; surrounded her like a blanket. The rest of the world fell away. Esther hated dancing—in truth, it was one of the things she wasn’t good at, no matter how much people pointed out that it wasn’t too different from skating. How could that be true when skating came so naturally, and dancing made her feel like the clumsiest person alive? But Otabek wasn’t really asking her if she _liked_ to dance, he was asking her if she’d like to dance with _him_. The answer, she found, was an instinctive, immediate, “Yes.”

He took her hand and led her to the floor, neither hesitant nor domineering. There were only a few others on the floor; the night was still young. Esther swallowed her anxiety with a nervous giggle, and actually swallowed as his free hand snaked around to rest on her lower back. His palm on her bare skin felt like a searing brand; made her gasp quietly into the space between them. She flushed, fixed her eyes on his flawless Windsor knot. Then, he was moving: she looked down, tried to sync her steps with his. “Look at me,” he murmured, and she found herself helpless to resist him. Their eyes locked, and she couldn’t look away, and somehow, they were gliding.

She was lighter than air, but her heart was a heavy weight in her chest. “Wow.” She shook her head. “I…I just. I’m not normally good at this. In fact, normally, I try to avoid dancing at all costs.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, in that same low, warm tone, a smile hinting at the corners of his mouth and under his eyes. “Are you sure you’ve just never tried it?”

“ _Very_ sure,” she replied, recalling the seemingly-endless waltz lessons that had been a part of her education.

“Maybe all you needed was the right partner.”

 _Holy shit._ She was lightheaded with how they circled the floor, drunk on the smell of sandalwood and the heat of his palm splayed over her skin. _Whose bright idea was this backless dress, anyway?_ “You’re really good at this.” He led confidently, in spite of her, and she followed him without fear. He stopped to let her spin out, and the tension in their joined hands brought her back, so he could dip her low.

“You’re better than you think you are,” he retorted.

After that, they spoke no more, favoring the movement of bodies over words. As they danced, Esther forgot about everything else, everything that wasn’t Otabek’s dark, ember-spark eyes, the elegant arch of his brow and the scattering of small freckles over the slope of his nose. For perhaps an eternity, it was all she knew, until Leo came up at Otabek’s elbow. “Hey, mind if I cut in?”

Otabek looked reluctant, but after a brief look of assent from Esther, he let her go. “Of course.”

“Hey, you,” Leo grinned, taking Otabek’s place. A moment to gauge the beat, and they fell back into the music, with a few missteps along the way. Leo was by no means a bad dancer, but the transition was still jarring. “I was afraid we were gonna lose you guys the whole night.”

Esther looked over her shoulder, spotted Chuenchai laughing as Otabek spun her. Just beyond them, Phichit and Guang Hong were grinning as they swooped about the floor; Nava was trying to teach Yu some kind of step. She looked back to Leo, found him with a knowing smile.

“Stop that,” she swatted at his shoulder, flustered.

“You and Otabek, huh?”

“There’s nothing…” she stopped short at the eyebrow he raised, flashing an embarrassed, elated smile. “I don’t know. I’m happy enough to be his friend again. It’s still so soon…”

“I know you,” Leo said, “And I know him. And you’re making the rest of us look bad out here.”

“Oh, yeah?” she laughed. “What about you and Guang Hong? I know _you_ , Leo, and you’re not fooling anyone.” Esther claimed a victory when the normally-unflappable Leo flicked his eyes aside, blushing. “A _ha_. At least _I_ can say I just met Otabek again.”

“All right, all right,” Leo conceded with a good-natured roll of his eyes. “I think you’re full of it, but I’ll give it to you.” He gave her a sudden, determined look. “Just promise me something, Esther. Let yourself have this.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You might not see it yet. Maybe you do, and you’re just playing it safe.” Leo shrugged. “I want you to let yourself have a chance at being happy. In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you look like you did just now, when you were dancing with Otabek.”

Esther blushed, fiercely. “Okay,” she agreed, after a moment, “But only if you promise me the same thing, because in all the years I’ve known _you_ , I’ve never seen you look like you do when you’re with Guang Hong.”

Leo chuckled, flushing again. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

“I’m gonna hold you to it,” she said, and before he could reply, they were trading partners again—Otabek and Esther shared a look as they brushed elbows—then Phichit had her, and he danced with all the infectious enthusiasm he poured into his routines, because as soon as their hands were set, he was beaming: “Let’s go!”

Dancing with Phichit left her breathless and laughing, and it was only when Chai asked for him back that he could be persuaded to let her go. She stood at the edge of the floor, thinking of going to the table for water, when Otabek appeared with the same gentle, polite touch at her shoulder. She looked at him and smiled—it was like coming home. “Hey.”

“Can I get you water?” he asked her.

She nodded, gratefully. He left her there, and she stood and watched Leo and Guang Hong dancing together, happier than she could remember being.

Someone sidled in on her left side; tall enough that she couldn’t see beyond the arm of a suit. She didn’t care to look until a familiar voice sounded: “Esther.” Her heart contracted with something she would later recognize as fear.

She looked up, taking in golden blond hair and icy blue eyes; the same ones that stared back at her from the mirror. “Dad?”

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. Esther waited, hardly daring to breathe, for what he wanted—she was about to ask him, when he finally broke the silence.

“I wanted to speak with you,” he said. “Congratulations on your medal.”

“Why?” she found her voice, took a deep breath and shook her head. “Why _now_ , why do you want to…talk to me? The message was pretty clear when you sent all my shit.” She turned and walked away, folding her arms tight and taking quick, deep breaths.

“Your mother was furious.” He followed her. She cursed under her breath, squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re the most important thing to her.”

She stopped.

“You never knew this,” he continued, quieter—unnecessarily, as they were some distance now from the floor—“She did want to have more children. She miscarried; three times.”

Esther stood and tried to work out how she felt about it. It was a long moment before she realized that it was _nothing._ Three almost-siblings: would their lot have been any different from hers? Would hers have been any different for them being there?

“It doesn’t matter,” she heard herself saying. “It doesn’t change everything you put me through. You and her both.” She turned around, found it was easy to look at him, now that she knew the depths of her apathy. “Don’t think you get a free pass, just because you weren’t always the one holding the gun. You always stood back and let her do what she was going to do. And then, you’d come to me later and talk to me, like you are now, getting into my head and messing with my perceptions of what happened until I wasn’t even sure what was real or not.”

“She didn’t send me here,” he said, quietly, with as much pain as she’d ever heard in his voice. Her European father—when she was younger, he’d always seemed so stoic and strong, a constant presence. It wasn’t until she was older that she truly learned of his temper, how wildly he could vacillate between affection and anger, _no excuses, Esther_ ; that it was better to stay on the good side of his moods. Her mother’s disapproval was a constant, but her father was easy to love, so long as she was willing to lose herself in the process. _I suppose we both manipulated each other._

“I don’t care. I blame you as much as I blame her, and I don’t want to see either of you ever again.”

Suddenly, Emanuel was behind her, his hand on her shoulder. “Esther, there you are,” he broke in, with false cheer. “I believe they’re looking for you back at the floor. Might I borrow Mr. Wagner here for a moment?”

“It’s fine,” she said, a measure of the ice melted out of her voice for him. “I was just leaving.”

As she walked away, she turned back, spotted Gabriel returning to Leah’s side. People had always told her she looked just like her: the same dark hair and skin, features close enough for coverage to call her Leah Markowitz come again. Feeling sick, she looked away, hoped against hope that it wasn’t true.

She returned to the side of the floor, where Otabek was standing with a cup of water. She took it gratefully, and downed it in three swallows. “The one banquet I really need to drink at,” she groused.

“Are you all right?” Otabek took her empty cup.

Esther looked at him, and let off the last of the tension with a small sigh. “Doing better now.”

They returned to the floor; this time, Otabek dared to pull her closer, bringing his hand to rest between her shoulderblades. Esther wrapped her arm over his, curling her hand over the strong curve of his shoulder. They couldn’t dance as well; it was more like swaying, but sway they did, happily, through song after song. He might as well have been her entire world, and much like watching him skate, she felt as if she could have done it forever.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t remember saying goodbye and going back to her room, but she must have, because she woke up the next morning in her bed. Slowly, she sat up, her memories of the previous night filtering through like a dream. She smiled.

Guang Hong, Phichit, Chuenchai, and Yu came by early to say goodbye. “Let’s do this again soon!” Phichit gave her a tight hug—Chuenchai’s subsequent one threatened to buckle her ribs. “You should come to Bangkok, I really mean it!”

She hugged Guang Hong goodbye, too, and she shook Yu’s hand. “I’ll see you at the next competition,” she gave her the most meaningful look she could muster. _There’s always another competition._ The look Yu gave her in return looked like understanding—she nodded, and walked a little straighter as they headed down the hall. They waved as they rounded the corner, and then they were gone.

She would be fine. She had friends, rinkmates, a good coach to see her through—all things Esther hadn’t had, when she’d fallen down. _Just another thing to thank dearest mother and father for._

She pushed the thought away. There was packing to do—her flight left in a few hours, and would put them back home at a good time to go more or less straight to bed, which would be a boon for resetting their internal clocks. _I can already hear Emanuel complaining. Suie will be there, though._

She was nearly finished when Emanuel knocked on the door to summon her to breakfast. He spent a minute muttering over the pastry selection before resigning himself to cereal, a scoop of the fruit cocktail, and a container of yogurt. Esther chuckled at him, and went with the same thing. Most of the others had gone already, sending their goodbyes into the group chat—Leo had promised to see her off at the door. She had just pulled out her phone, thinking to ask Otabek when he was leaving, when she heard a voice nearby. Turning in her seat, she spied Nava, trading a few words with her coach at the desk. “I’ll be right back,” she rose, hurrying across the tile.

“Hey, Esther,” Nava beamed to see her.

“Are you headed out?”

“Yeah. I’ve got to go through Canada to get back to Tel Aviv.” She shifted on her feet, thoughtful, and then, her eyes burned with determination. “I’m going to do well at the NHK Trophy. We’ll meet again in the Final.”

 _We will. If not this year, then someday._ Esther thought about her words from the victory ceremony, and she smiled. “Don’t get me wrong. I won’t be content to take silver forever.” She held out her hand. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Nava took hold of the offered hand and gave it a hearty shake.

“ _Behatz lochoh_ , Nava.”

“You too, Esther.”

She returned to the table and slid into her seat to find Emanuel looking at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, smiling and shoving a spoonful of yogurt into his mouth. Neither said anything more: even this, a quiet breakfast held in a hotel lobby, resembled their usual ritual and made them both eager for home.

 

 

* * *

 

By the time they cleared customs and found their gate, Otabek was waiting across the corridor. Esther crossed straight into his arms, resting her head in the crook of his neck with a sigh. “I’m glad it worked out this way,” she murmured.

“I would have come to say goodbye.”

“I know.”

They sat in two seats together, sharing a pair of earbuds. He let her listen to a few things he’d been working on; then, she hooked her chin over his shoulder while they looked over their friends’ Instagram posts. Esther sat up, suddenly. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Wait here.” She crossed the corridor, returning to a bemused Emanuel long enough to retrieve her medal. “We should take a picture. We match.”

Otabek dug, obligingly, in his carry-on for his medal, slipping it around his neck. They were both, fittingly, in their team jackets as well. “You take it, you’ve got longer arms.” She pressed close as he held the camera out, and smiled. She leaned on him again, watched, with some surprise, as he queued it up as an Instagram post. He paused, thumbs hovering over the keyboard for a caption. “Do you follow me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s private,” he explained, as she looked him up. His icon was a picture of him, from the back—undoubtedly him, but only someone who knew him could have been certain. She sent him the request, and looked back just as he hit _post_. Esther pouted at him, and put her phone away. Evidently, there was something in there that he didn’t want her to see just yet.

“Do you know what I wished for?” he asked her, “At the pier?”

She quickly forgot about it, in favor of pushing at his arm—not that he budged an inch. “You can’t tell me that. If you do it won’t come true.” For a moment, she sat, then she turned to him. “What was it?”

He mirrored her, meeting her eyes. “That we would both get to the Final.”

Esther’s heart skipped several beats. “Me too.”

Otabek lowered his eyes. “I can’t promise that I will. But I can promise that I’ll call this time.”

Suddenly, his flight was calling for boarding. “Is it already time?” she checked her phone. _12:15._

Otabek stood, offering her his hand. Hesitating, Esther took it, allowed him to pull her to her feet. He hugged her again, tighter than before, and she closed her eyes and breathed him in, hardly daring to believe that he was really there, after all the time and everything they’d been through, her Beka.

Her eyes opened. _I haven’t called him that yet. Not since…_

“I’ll tell you when I get in,” he promised. He drew back, and froze, staring at her as if he wanted to memorize every contour of her face. Esther stilled, lips parting: her breath came short, her heart pounded.

The moment passed. She smiled, weak and shaky from the sudden, inexplicable adrenaline rush. “Bye, Beka. Safe trip home.” With one final squeeze of his hand, she turned and walked back across the concourse, returned to Emanuel at their gate. She looked back and watched as he went to the end of the queue, which was proceeding smartly up to the desk.

The flight to Stockholm was quiet—she had forgotten how draining competitions were, and took the time to enjoy the relative silence. They had dinner during their layover, and boarded for the subsequent connection home as the sun set. Within three hours, they were home at last.

Suie came bounding to the door as soon as it opened. “Hello, _Suie-lutin_ ,” she cooed, setting her luggage aside to scoop him up and scratch behind his ears. Suie purred like a motorboat, tiptoed up onto her shoulders and allowed her to drag her suitcase and bag back to her room. She sat on the bed, collapsing on her back once Suie leapt onto his pillow. “I’m so glad I’m home.”

“Emanuel,” Esther called, returning to the front room with Suie trotting in her wake. “I think you’re right. Europe is definitely better.”

“I knew you’d come around.” He was making tea—he held the tin up to her, eyebrows raising. She squinted at the label—chamomile—and nodded. “We’ll do a light training regimen starting Wednesday, and we’ll start again with your normal schedule on Sunday.”

Esther chuckled. “Back to business already?”

“A silver medal is a start.” The kettle began to whistle; he plucked it from the burner and poured hot water into two cups.

“That it is.” They stood and watched the tea steep in silence. Esther tugged at the tab of her bag, watching the pale brown seeping into the water. When he pulled his, so did she, blowing carefully before she took a sip.

“Are you going to tell me about that young man at the banquet?”

Esther nearly choked. Swallowing, she sputtered, coughing a few times. “Who, Otabek? We’re friends, we go way back…my parents used to train him.”

“Mm-hm.” Emanuel sipped delicately at his tea. “How long ago was that?”

“Three years. Give or take.”

“I see.”

“We hadn’t seen each other in a while.” She smiled down into her teacup, tilting it gently to watch it swirl.

“I could tell.” Whatever secret look he had, he hid behind his cup. “You looked like you were meeting for the first time, and like you’d known each other all your lives, all at once.”

Esther cocked her eyebrow at him. “Are you waxing poetic on me?”

“I’m French, Esther.”

“I know. You wouldn’t let me and the city of Chicago forget it.”

Emanuel chuckled at her. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just being a concerned coach. I’m glad that you have friends on the ice. They’re some of the best parts of this life.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “They are.” She took a sip of her tea. “Speaking of…being a concerned coach. Thanks for…intervening, with my—”

“No need to mention it.” A long pause. “Unless…you want to?”

She stared into the depths of her chamomile. “No, I don’t.” Another long silence ensued. “It’s crazy,” she spoke, finally, if only to make a sound. “I’d forgotten…how _much_. You know? It all feels like a blur now.”

“It’ll get easier as you get used to it again. Although, you did have a lot going on in the last few days.” He looked pointedly at her teacup. “Are you going to drink your tea?”

She picked it up. “Yeah. I’ll take it with me.”

“All right. I’m going to bed. You should too.” He patted her shoulder as he passed, pausing in the entry to the hall. She watched him, expectantly, his head framed right next to her bronze on the wall. “I really am very proud of you, Esther. For everything. I…next time, let’s outdo ourselves.”

Moscow was four weeks away. “We will.”

Emanuel smiled, and vanished.

Esther picked up her teacup, and headed back to her room. Suie followed, her little four-legged shadow. She sat it on her bedside table, shuffled into her bathroom to brush her teeth. Returning, she put on her pajamas and stretched out over the bedspread with a sigh. Her phone buzzed, and she picked it up, peering at the list of notifications. One stuck out to her.

She unlocked her phone.

 

Her thumbs hovered over the screen, started up again, froze.

_It’s silly. We just saw each other, but—_

She erased the message, and pressed the home button. On a hunch, she opened Instagram, checked her notifications, and found _otabek_altin has approved your follow request._ She opened his account, and looked at the top picture: there they were, together, and while she was smiling for the camera, he was looking at her.

_Happy to reconnect with old friends at Skate America this year. Next time, let’s match with gold._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [esther's exhibition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIzKmFSXxAk)   
>  [otabek's exhibition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tr0otuiQuU)   
>  [leo's exhibition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJtK14ffgEM)
> 
> [esther's dress](https://xo.lulus.com/images/product/xlarge/1549434_247570.jpg)


	8. Piano Etude in H-Moll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [esther markowitz (portrait)](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/post/165688654299/a-long-time-ago-you-said-you-thought-i-could-be)   
>  [esther in her free skate costume](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/post/165623892134/lift-your-arms-to-the-horn-open-your)

The next few weeks were only for skating. Esther trained with one eye on the live broadcasts of the other events; each one was more time passing, each result was another step closer to Moscow. Skate Canada came first; the ladies’ gold went to a veteran, Ina Lund of Sweden. She had long been known as the Ice Princess, though her competitors tended to favor Ice Queen.

Before the cameras, she presented a confident, poised, charming picture. “Winning gold today was just the start.” Her medal glinted beneath the light, matching her hair and the yellow cross on her sky-blue jacket. “I plan to win at the Trophée de France, and at the Final as well.”

Ina Lund had been chasing Nadya Voronina for years, always the silver to her gold: but Nadya Voronina had retired at the close of the last season, and now she had a shot at number one.

Sophie Tremblay took silver in her home country, and bronze went to Soo-Jin Park, a Korean skater on her second trip to the Grand Prix in the Senior division.

On a whim, Esther looked at the men’s results. No one she knew was competing, but she recognized some of the names: Jean-Jacques Leroy had been in Juniors at the same time as her, but her parents had always kept her far away from him. He, much like Leo, took gold, to the raucous support of his native crowd. She would admit, grudgingly, that his routines were almost inhuman—with a Lutz under his belt, he seemed almost unstoppable.

Emil Nekola was another familiar face; more so than Leroy. They’d probably met in passing at some event or another. She remembered him being friendly, and his interviews seemed to support that.

Yuri Plisetsky was in Canada, too. He took silver and looked positively distraught. Esther thought of her Worlds bronze on the wall, and her heart went out to him.

“I hope his coach isn’t pushing him,” she confessed to Otabek, on one of their every-few-days Skype calls.

He shook his head. “It’s not his coach.” At her curious look, he elaborated. “I did a training camp at his rink when I first entered Juniors. Feltsman is tough, but he’s fair, and he’s a real hardass about making sure you don’t overwork yourself. He doesn’t even let his Junior skaters attempt quads.”

“Oh,” Esther sighed, unsure why she felt so relieved. “Hang on—you never told me about this training camp.”

Otabek looked off to the side. “Uh…well. It was…”

“You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to.” She meant it, but her chest still tightened at the possibility that he’d take her up on it. It wasn’t like Otabek to keep things from her.

“No,” he shook his head. She fell silent, he took a deep, bracing breath. “You know I had a hard time in Juniors. Everyone else was more talented than I was—”

Esther stifled her disagreement, channeling it into a twist of her lips.

“—and I struggled to work hard enough to keep up. That camp…was where I first realized that. I wasn’t good enough to keep up with the other skaters in Juniors, so they put me in the Novice class.”

“You were always so serious,” she conceded, thinking back to practice on the ice, how she would watch how his eyes burned, so hot that she feared some days the ice would melt before him. “But…they all had better resources than you, and even if you started behind them, you shared the podium last year with Viktor Nikiforov.” She smiled. “I’d say you found your stride.”

He acknowledged her with a soft, shy look cast off to the side. “Thank you. It was more than just that, though. I realized then that I wasn’t going to win by getting good at what everyone else did. I had to do things that no one else was doing.”

The recollection of his intensity was enough to make her shiver.

 

“How is your family?” she asked.

“Ecstatic,” he replied, “That we reconnected. My mother is already asking me when you’re going to come and visit. She used to do that all the time, while I was in Boston, remember? She never really forgave me for never bringing you to visit.”

Esther laughed.

“Inzhu still doesn’t fully believe you exist. I showed everyone a video of your free skate; Aruzhan and Anara loved it. They also really want to meet you now.” He paused, took a soft breath. “Inkar is pregnant. She just told us.”

“Really?” Esther gasped. “How far along is she?”

“Eight weeks or so. She’s due in June.”

“It’s her first one, right?”

“Yeah.” He fixed a wide, slightly awed look down at his keyboard. “I’m going to be an uncle again. And this time, I’ll actually be here for it.”

“Beka, that’s _exciting_ ,” she beamed. “ _Mazel tov_. Tell her I said congratulations.”

“I will,” he promised, softly smiling. “Maybe you can come too. It’ll be during the off-season. I can show you Almaty, like you showed me Boston.”

Her breath caught. He had always spoken of his home with such fondness; in her mind, it had become irrevocably linked with him. Almaty was Beka’s place; the city where his heart lay. He wanted to show it to her.

“I’d like that.”

They would talk as late as they dared, as their schedules allowed: sometimes, that meant talking on breaks in the midst of practice, propping phones up on the wall and showing each other their elements. “Show me the salchow again,” she asked, a few days after Skate Canada, and watched, enthralled, as he skated out of view, back into it, turned through a motion familiar, whipped through the air like he would never have to come down.

It was only another turn. So very little, and yet, almost a world apart from what she knew.

After they hung up, she would lie beneath the covers and think about the things she wouldn’t dare say out loud: the way everything quieted for the sound of his voice, how he would speak in a certain tone and it was almost as good as arms around her. Some nights, the bed felt too big for just her: as the weather grew colder, she would wrap herself in the blankets and hug a pillow to drift off to sleep in her makeshift cocoon. Others, she would stare into the darkness, tired but restless, smoldering with a heat that threatened to consume her, if she dwelled too long on the hard line of his jaw, the perfect cupid’s bow of his lips, the bunch and release of his muscles into a perfect triple axel. It was uncharted territory: suddenly, something she thought she’d understood was real to her, in a way that made her realize that her previous understanding was academic at best. It was so much more potent when the object of her desires was real, and furthermore, _knew_ her, had touched her with gentle hands and danced with her all night.

“You’ve certainly kept up with that Altin boy,” Emanuel observed, one morning at breakfast.

Esther froze, spoon halfway to her mouth, caught up in a sudden panic. “Uh…”

“I hear you talking to him at all hours of the night.” He waved her off with a small sigh and a wistful smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’m only speaking as your coach, here. It’s always a concern, when our skaters start cavorting around with other people their age…” he picked up his teacup. “Sometimes, they start having other things on their minds…”

“I just got back in,” she said, quickly. “I’m not about to toss my career out for a _boy_.” _Even a boy as wonderful as Otabek._

He nodded sagely, like he’d expected her answer. “I know. That’s why I’m not worried about it. Still, you know, there’s that little part of me…”

“Yeah,” she said, wryly, stirring at her yogurt. “I know it pretty well.”

Chuckling, he reached across the table to pat her hand.

The Cup of China was approaching rapidly, and Esther was watching like a hawk. Leo and Phichit posted pictures of their arrivals in Beijing that nearly jumped off the screen with the palpable force of their excitement. Guang Hong started showing up almost immediately in Leo’s pictures—Esther wondered if he remembered his end of their agreement. _I’ll ask later,_ she decided. The short program was looming, and they had enough to focus on.

The stream of photos kept her entertained the day before the true start to competition, but there was one that hit midafternoon, just as Esther was checking her feed following her post-practice shower, that sent her into a near frenzy.

She called Phichit immediately, in spite of her knowledge of the local time.

“Hi, Esther!” he picked up on the second ring. “Yeah, it’s Esther,” he said, to someone on his end. “Chai says hey!”

“You didn’t tell me you were friends with Yuuri Katsuki.” She had him on speaker, the better to stare at the offending picture while she grilled him. It had come right on the heels of a series taken inside a restaurant; Celestino and Chuenchai were looking three sheets to the wind, Leo and Guang Hong had seemed unsure of whether they were supposed to be enjoying themselves or not: and then, posted alone, so there was no chance of swiping through it in an album, a picture of Viktor Nikiforov, in a questionable state of undress, clinging jealously to a flustered, still fully-clothed, Yuuri Katsuki.

“Yuuri?” Phichit repeated, chipper as ever. “We trained together in Detroit for years.” He paused, puzzled. “You didn’t see any of the pictures?”

“Phichit, you post, like, eight times a day,” Esther squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I’m pretty sure the period in which you two were rink mates is, at this point, thoroughly buried.”

“Huh. You’re probably right. Anyway, yeah! Yuuri’s one of my best friends! Why, do you know him too?”

“No,” Esther said, covering her face with a hand. _He only inspired me to start skating again in the first place, no big deal._ But there was no real way to explain that to someone, so she told Phichit that it was late in China and told him to go to bed; he had a competition tomorrow.

“Okay, _Mom_ ,” he teased. “You know, you sound just like Yuuri! I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner. I’ll have to introduce you guys sometime! I’ll tell everyone you said hi, bye Esther!”

By some miracle, she managed to dodge the multiple heart attacks that he’d very nearly afflicted her with. “Oh my god,” she whimpered, curling into the fetal position and staying there until Suie came to meow loudly for his dinner.

She found herself studying the photo, wondering what sort of person Yuuri Katsuki was. His skating was one thing—but now, he was barely a degree of separation away from her. One of her friends considered him one of his _best_ friends. Unlike Phichit, he barely had an Internet presence. _Who are you?_ She studied his face in the picture, the wide, startled look in his eyes. _Is this what you normally do? Phichit said I sound like you. Did your friends have to drag you to this?_

The day of the short program came, and Esther was watching like a hawk. “Is this the Cup of China?” Emanuel asked, passing her on the couch. He puttered around in the kitchen, returned with two cups of tea, and sat beside her.

“Yeah,” she nodded, taking the offered cup of jasmine. “Thanks.”

“This is men’s,” he pointed out.

“My friends are competing in this one,” she retorted. It was true, but while Leo, Guang Hong, and Phichit were up for their second event, Yuuri Katsuki was up for his first. She hadn’t seen him skate since the exhibition, six months ago. _It feels like an eternity._ She could hardly wait to see how he had improved since then; what his free program looked like.

Phichit was up first. “He was runner-up at Skate America,” Esther thought through the commentary, providing translation as quick as she could manage. “He’ll have to place second or higher to qualify for the Final.”

Emanuel nodded. “I like his style,” he spoke, about halfway through. “Celestino was right to brag about this one.”

“Oh?” Esther gave him half of her attention, still focused on the routine, but curious.

“He thinks he has a winner in Phichit. I think he’s right. That’s somebody who knows how to perform.”

“They underscored him in Chicago. I think he would’ve taken bronze otherwise.”

Both hissed as Phichit fell on his quad toe. “He’ll have a high performance score,” Emanuel murmured, “If he plays his cards right, he can catch up in the free skate.”

Esther watched them in the kiss and cry. “It’s a new personal best,” she reported, happily. Phichit looked excited, too, tracing out a heart for the cameras. Just like in Chicago, he didn’t look like he was going to get down on himself. _God, what I wouldn’t give._

Guang Hong was on next. This time, he landed his quad. “Yes!” Esther clapped as he came down. Emanuel sent her a brief smile before he focused again on the screen. Guang Hong took second place, a few points behind Phichit.

It was Yuuri’s turn. Esther pulled her feet in, hugged her knees and watched, with bated breath, as he exchanged a last few words at the wall.

“I suppose we’ll see now how well Viktor Nikiforov does as a coach,” Emanuel observed.

In full view of the cameras, Yuuri Katsuki pressed his forehead to his coach’s. A brief, intense moment passed between them; then, he skated out.

Eros took her breath away. She could hardly believe it was the same routine; he’d sunk so deep into it, made it so thoroughly his own. Emanuel was silent beside her—she shot a half a glance at him, but found him just as intent on the performance as she was. She turned back, her eyes drinking in every moment, every minute movement of his body, the looks that passed over his face. It was aesthetic beauty, in a perfect marriage with technical elements.

“ _Magnifique_ ,” Emanuel muttered, as the routine came to a close. “That is…incredible, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen…”

Esther just nodded. She knew, oh, did she _ever_ know.

Yuuri Katsuki scored into the hundreds. He leaned forward to squint at the screen, but Viktor hugged him tight.

“They’re going to have a tough time catching up with that,” said Emanuel.

The ice was turned over to group two. The first to go on was Georgi Popovich, another student of Yakov Feltsman. _He’s got to be good, if he’s got Viktor’s old coach_. And he was— _Carabosse_ was an intense performance, though the costume took her out of it. She could almost hear Chuenchai complaining.

Leo was on next. “He’s the closest to making the Final,” Esther said, “He won gold at Skate America.” His performance was just as engrossing as it had been in Chicago. This time around, it was even more polished; perfectly paced, without mistakes, so patently tailored to his strengths. Emanuel nodded approvingly as he received his score.

The last one to take the ice was Christophe Giacometti; perpetual silver to Viktor’s gold. _And how will that manifest, now that Viktor is out of the field?_

As it turned out, in what looked like a loss of motivation. Compared to his performance at Worlds a few months ago, he looked almost uninspired here. _What, you lose your rival and now you just can’t get it up anymore?_ It certainly hadn’t stopped Ina Lund.

“Oh,” Emanuel said, aloud, as Christophe grabbed at his ass, moving in a way that made her think, for a single heart-stopping moment, that he was going to spread right then and there.

 _Okay. Maybe that was a poor choice of words._ Through the remainder of the routine, Esther was reminded of sitting through a sex scene with her parents.

“That was…” Emanuel cleared his throat. “Certainly something.”

“I’ll say…”

Christophe Giacometti took fifth place for the day, leaving Yuuri untouched in first place, nearly nine points ahead of his next competitor. “It’ll be interesting, to see where that goes tomorrow,” Emanuel noted. “Is it time for the ladies?”

Esther watched the raw panic in Yuuri Katsuki’s eyes as he promised to win, the following day, with the power of love, and didn’t answer right away.

Yuuri Katsuki went into the second day in the lead, and that was where predictability ceased. Guang Hong flubbed his jump, effectively killing his chances for the Final; Christophe followed and delivered the obligatory Rhapsodie Espagnole— _odd, that he’s waited so long to bring it into his career,_ she thought, _unless…_ He turned in a high score, making up for his performance the previous day. Phichit delivered a free skate that nearly brought the house down and sent him straight back into the running. Leo was on next, and Esther felt the twisting pain in her own chest when he missed his triple, and again.

“Oh, no,” Emanuel murmured, shaking his head as he finished and skated dejectedly off the ice. “That’s too bad.”

“I’ll call him later,” she said, half to herself. The time for Yuuri to go on was fast approaching, and her own heart was pounding like she was going to be the one skating.

Georgi Popovich seemed to be on a personal mission to top himself in terms of ridiculous wardrobe—this one, she decided, was even worse than _Carabosse_ , and it had features all its own. His free skate, in place of tears, featured a single, echoing scream.

“Oh my,” said Emanuel, lightly.

In this case, raw feeling ended up counting against final score. “He’s not going to make it this year,” Emanuel observed. Esther didn’t reply; she could barely breathe, because it was Yuuri Katsuki’s turn.

Something was different when he entered the rink: he and Viktor looked…distant, oddly so, both of them, especially in comparison with the previous day. She and Emanuel watched, bewildered, as he poked at his coach’s head and took the ice. _What am I looking at?_

His free program was…not as good as Eros. But it _could_ be. She could see its greatness, hiding just beneath the surface of exhaustion and panic and the weight of previous failure. _God, and don’t I know it…_ His previous performance wasn’t lightning in a bottle, it _couldn’t_ be.

In the second half, it started to pick up, _yes, yes, that’s it, leave it behind, there’s only open sky ahead—_

“Consistency,” Emanuel said. “That’s all he’s missing. If he can perform like he did yesterday, there’d be no stopping him.”

For half a moment, she was dazed, half-remembering the things he’d said to her. Quickly, she shook it off, returned her attention to the routine. _Come on._ Her fists clenched on her thighs. _If I have it in me, then I know you do._ He turned, tensing for his final jump—

“NO!” she gasped, and he didn’t land it, but he went around enough, it looked like enough. “Did he—”

“Yes, I think he did,” breathless as she felt. “Wasn’t that—?”

 “Viktor’s, yeah.” The routine ended at last. “Oh, look, there he is. He’s running…” Viktor was, indeed, running around the edge of the rink, dashing for the kiss and cry just as Yuuri was skating straight to it. He approached with open arms, just as Viktor stopped at the edge.

Both of them were utterly silent, as they watched Viktor Nikiforov crash into Yuuri Katsuki midair, kiss him soundly, and fall onto the ice with him.

“Oh…” Emanuel said.

“Holy _shit_.” Esther reached over and nudged him, not daring to pry her eyes from the feed. “You saw that too, right?”

“Us and the rest of the world,” he replied, faintly. “I suppose that proves the rumors true.”

Esther blinked, found herself with a sudden, manic grin—she laughed, collapsing limply onto the couch with the force of it. Emanuel regarded her, somewhat alarmed. “What’s so funny?”

Like most girls, she’d had her little baby crush on Viktor Nikiforov at the age of twelve. _Yuuri Katsuki,_ she thought, watching him take the silver to Phichit’s gold and Christophe’s bronze, _half the world hates you right now, and the rest of them want to be you._ During the medal ceremony, the camera cut briefly to Viktor, who wore such a look of tender pride, she nearly blushed to look at it. _Well, if anybody was going to get him, I’m glad it was you._

In ladies’ singles, gold went to Sara Crispino and her infamous triple Lutz-triple Loop; silver, to Aileen Ahearne, an Irish skater with intense, unique footwork courtesy of her background in the traditional step dance of her home country. Chen Yu missed medaling in her home country by a few points: bronze went to Cecília Rybárová of Slovakia, and Esther hoped she was taking it all right.

“Sara Crispino and Aileen Ahearne are both going to the Rostelecom Cup,” Emanuel pointed out, lightly.

Esther nodded, felt her pulse spike. “Let’s work twice as hard from now on.”

She waited until the following day to call Leo. “ _It was just an off day_ ,” he told her, frustrated. “ _I can’t pinpoint the one thing I did wrong. It almost makes it worse_.”

“Yeah, I hear you. It sucks, but it’s done now. Take it from me; there’s always next year.”

“ _Yeah. Thanks. I’m gonna work hard for Nationals this year_.”

“I believe it.”

Just as soon as it had come, the Cup of China passed them by, which left the NHK Trophy coming up. “Are you excited?” she asked Otabek, on their last call before he left for Japan.

He let out a deep exhale. “Excited, nervous. I felt a bit shaky, going into Skate America, but I feel like I’ve warmed up. Like I’m ready now.” He gave her one of his intense looks. “I’m going to win gold.”

“Okay, Altin,” she said, softly. “I’ll be watching.”

And she was; and he did. Seung-gil Lee and Michele Crispino followed him up, but her eyes were for him on the podium, and him alone. _My golden boy,_ she thought, as he held it up. For the briefest instant, he was looking directly into the broadcast camera, and her pulse skittered.

Interestingly, the first call she received after the men’s medal ceremony was from Chuenchai. “ _Did you see it?_ ” she began, without preamble.

“Of course.”

A dreamy sigh issued from the other end of the line. “ _Isn’t Seung-gil Lee beautiful?_ ”

Esther, when persuaded to tear her eyes off Otabek for a half a second, could appreciate that the silver medalist had certain aesthetic qualities. “Yeah, I could understand why you’d say that.”

“ _His eyebrows are_ flawless,” she gushed, “ _And his hair is_ just _the right amount of messy. Tousled, but not tangled. And his_ eyes _. They’re so intense_ … _Esther, I’d give anything to design for him. But did you_ see _his short program costume? What_ was _that?_ ”

“I don’t know, some kind of horrendous parrot outfit.”

“ _I wanted to like it so bad, Esther. It was such a sexy routine. But…I don’t know. At least we saw his cleavage?_ ”

Esther laughed. “I’ll leave that to you. How’s Phichit doing?”

“ _He’s been so happy since the Cup of China_ ,” Chai reported. A shrill chime, sounding like a kitchen timer, went off in the background; kitchen utensils clattered. “ _We don’t know yet if he’ll make the Final; it’ll depend on how everything else turns out. But we’re all proud of him either way, of course. I hope Seung-gil makes it, though. It’d give me an excuse to meet him…_ ”

“What does Phichit think about your thing for Seung-gil?” Esther teased.

There was a moment of confused silence. “ _I mean…I don’t know. He just kind of laughs, I guess. He’s so mean to me, Esther. Wait, why?_ ”

Esther frowned. “You two are…dating, right?”

“ _What? No! No, no no no no no no no. We’re just friends! We’ve been friends since primary school! Not dating! We’ve never dated, ever._ ”

 _Should I have stopped her?_ At first, Esther was fully willing to believe that she’d assumed incorrectly, but Chuenchai kept talking, and it only made her suspicious.

“Never _ever_?”

“ _Nope, never ever. Anyway, dinner’s ready, so I gotta go! Bye!_ ” She hung up.

Esther tossed her phone aside. “Hmm.” She didn’t talk to Otabek until later—“Hey,” he greeted her from his hotel room, looking exhausted but pleased.

“Let me see it,” she stretched out, expectantly, on her stomach. Grinning at her, Otabek reached off-camera and returned with his gold medal. “I’m so proud of you! How does it feel to be the first guy in men’s singles to make the Final?”

“Like it hasn’t quite sunk in yet,” he admitted, chuckling as he set it aside again. He looked at her, seriously. “I’ve kept my promise, now you just have to keep yours.”

“Yeah,” she rested her head on the bedspread. “Emanuel’s been working me like you wouldn’t believe. It’s nothing that I didn’t ask for, of course, but…you know how it is.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Do you feel like you’re ready?”

She took a deep breath. “I think I am.” _As I’ll ever be._

Ladies’ proceeded afterwards: Esther watched with pride as Nava took bronze to Mila Babicheva’s silver and Ntombi Kotze’s gold—two more of her competitors at Rostelecom. Mila Babicheva, another Feltsman student, was a _beast_ , and had a triple axel to boot. _Guess I won’t be riding on that in Moscow._ Ntombi was more of an all-rounder, but was still nothing to sneeze at; she had great presence, her spins were tight, and her jumps were strong.

The Trophée de France followed; Christophe Giacometti took gold, earning himself the second qualification for the Final. Georgi Popovich managed to win bronze for his trouble. Of more interest to her was the ladies’: Ina Lund made good on her word, took her second gold and guaranteed her spot in the Final. “I’m going to win the Grand Prix this year,” she promised, looking smug enough to have won it already.

In a startling upset, Olivia Miller tanked her short program, and then her free skate. “I think I’ve been a little too cocky this season,” she admitted, “I overestimated my abilities. I’m going to take some time off, recover, and hopefully come back in time for New Zealand Nationals. I want to thank everyone who’s supported me through this.” The silver medal, which had been projected to go to her in the event that Ina Lund surpassed her, went instead to Sofia Borisova of Bulgaria, the final competitor Esther would soon face in Moscow.

Suddenly, the last week of November was beginning. It was nearly time for them to leave.

Esther ran her programs for the last time the night before they departed. Emanuel nodded at her, smiling warmly. “You know the choreography. All that you have to do now is show them who you are.”

Their flight for Moscow left in the morning, later than the one to Chicago had been. Esther watched her competitor’s videos over again at the gate, dwelled on Mila’s triple axel and Sara’s combinations, Aileen’s footwork, Sofia’s intensity, Ntombi’s stellar performance.

 _I’m the silver medalist for Skate America,_ she reminded herself. _I have a real shot at the Grand Prix Final._ She looked over the standings, steeling herself. Everyone going to the Rostelecom Cup already had a gold or a silver medal under their belt. _Nobody said this was gonna be easy._ She scrolled back up to the men’s listings, and took a deep breath. Yuuri Katsuki would be in Moscow too.

_Let’s both make it to the Final._

* * *

 

Upon their first steps beyond the doors of Sheremetyevo, Emanuel shivered at the winter chill. In Russia, it was already snowing. Esther tilted her face up into the sharp, cold air and smiled. Emanuel was a little less enamored of the winter weather. “Come on, let’s get a cab.”

They arrived to check in just as Sofia Borisova and her coach were finishing. Esther opened her mouth to say hello, but the look on her face stopped her cold. _Geez, she’s intimidating._ Sofia continued to stare, like she was sizing her up. Her coach spoke to her in clipped Bulgarian, and she broke off to follow her to the elevators. “Esther,” Emanuel said, hopefully, and she shook her head, stepping up to speak to the clerk in Russian. They were given their keys, and headed up to their rooms. “I’m going to make it an early night,” he told her, “You should too. You have the public practice tomorrow morning. Any sightseeing you want to do, you can do after that.”

Esther shrugged. “All right.” In Chicago, she’d had people she was friendly with—here, she didn’t know anyone. After showering off the travel stink, she clambered into bed and called Otabek.

“Hey.”

“Hey. I made it to Moscow.”

“Are you excited?” he asked, parroting her earlier question.

“Yeah. Nervous. All the people I’m up against here are really good.”

“And so are you.” Smiling, she nestled her head more comfortably on her pillow. “It’s late. You should get to sleep.”

“I know. I wanted to hear your voice first.”

A brief silence. “You have now,” he spoke, softer than before. “Get some rest. We can talk more later.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be watching you. Goodnight, Esther.”

  “’Night, Beka.” She drew the phone from her ear, waiting a moment to hit _end call._ She stretched over the bed, plugged it in on the nightstand, and turned out the light, burrowing under the blankets with a soft sigh. _See you in Barcelona._

Emanuel woke her the following morning with a light breakfast, before they headed out for the rink. Though they were early, it wasn’t nearly as empty as it had been in Chicago. Esther picked out at least three of her competitors before she ducked to put on her skates.

“Run through your elements,” Emanuel told her. “I’ll let you know if I see something that I think needs working.”

She nodded, and skated out, beginning, as always, with her figures. She kept half an eye trained on the rest of the rink, scanning for Yuuri Katsuki, but there was no sign of him. She threw herself wholeheartedly into practicing, ran through each of her program elements and cast a look at Emanuel. He nodded, _your choice._ She took the opportunity to run her triple salchow, again, again, higher and higher each time.

The hiss of the ice under blades announced someone skating to a halt nearby. “Your triple salchow is really good.” She looked up, startled, brought very suddenly out of her headspace.

“Oh…thanks.” It was Ntombi Kotze, in South Africa green-and-yellow. She skated closer, and Esther noticed that her friendly smile, unlike many others she had seen, looked completely genuine.

“Would you show me your triple axel? You don’t have to, obviously…I’ve been working on adding it to my repertoire since last season.”

“Uh…yeah, sure.” Esther skated back to the edge, skated back towards the empty space, and leapt. She sailed through the air, and came down to applause.

“I feel like I’m getting close. How do you do it?”

“I don’t know,” Esther rubbed at the back of her neck. “I’ve…never really had to think about it.”

“Oi, come on.” Aileen Ahearne finished a step sequence, skidding to a stop right beside them. “Quit bothering her, Ntombi, she’s practicing.”

“No, it’s fine,” Esther held up a hand. “Really. I was sort of finishing up anyway.”

“Really?” Ntombi brightened. “Me too! We should go out after this, get lunch and look around!” She looked, hopefully, at Esther.

“Oh. Well, I have to check with Emanuel, but I’d be game.”

Aileen blew at an errant strand of hair, escaped from her fiery red braid. “Fiona’ll probably make me run my combinations again, but if you’re willing to wait, I’ll be along.”

“Of course! Let me talk to Josef.” Ntombi skated away. Esther watched her go, and returned to Emanuel at the wall.

“Making friends?” he asked her, amused.

“Apparently. Ntombi wants to go grab lunch. Are we good?”

Emanuel checked his watch. “Do you feel ready?” She nodded, and he delivered a thoughtful look to the ice. “All right. Give me your _Firebird_ step sequence again, and we’ll be done.”

She did so. As she let the motion carry her across the ice, she noticed that Sara Crispino had, at some point, taken the ice. She looked to be nearing the end of her warm-up: then, suddenly, she whipped into her triple Lutz, triple loop. The dedicated fans in the stands cheered. Esther came to a stop, brows furrowing.

She exited the rink with Ntombi and Aileen. “Let’s meet in the hotel lobby at noon,” Ntombi suggested; she and Aileen found no reason to disagree.

Esther came down at five ‘til to find Ntombi already waiting. “Right on time!” Aileen was down at twelve sharp and not a moment sooner, a fact which Ntombi poked fun at her for, nonetheless. “Esther was here five minutes _early_.”

“Well, forgive me for thinking one of us should find out where we’re eating. We’ll need a cab.” The three headed towards the door. She liked Aileen, she decided; no-nonsense, but a good sense of humor.

“Don’t worry about it,” Esther told her, “I’m a bit German.”

“Right, you’re from Luxembourg. It’s such a beautiful country,” Ntombi gushed, as they waited for their taxi in the cold. “Matthieu and Chris took me there for our anniversary last year.”

Esther waited for an explanation, but it never came; Ntombi just smiled out at the road.

“Who are Matthieu and Chris?”

“Not everybody’s got a periscope into your brain, Bee,” Aileen elbowed her.

“Oh! Sorry. Matthieu and Chris are my boyfriends.”

“Matthieu is her choreographer,” Aileen filled in, deadpan, “I imagine you’ve heard of Christophe Giacometti?”

“Wait— _that_ Christophe Giacometti?” Esther blinked. “Well, yeah, I’ve heard of him, obviously, I just didn’t realize that’s who you meant. So…you’re all together?”

She nodded, happily. “Two years, now.”

Aileen _tsk_ ed. “Two men, and I can’t even find one.”

Esther chuckled, and found herself thinking, as she frequently did, these days, about Otabek. “How did you all meet?”

“Oh, here we go,” said Aileen, in fond exasperation. The cab rolled to a stop, and they all clambered in—Aileen gave the driver their destination, and Ntombi wasted no time in beginning her tale.

“We’ve known each other for a long time. It all started when I was a kid. My dad took me on a business trip to Geneva, and because it was my birthday, he took me to see an ice show. Christophe was performing, and when the show was over, he gave me a flower.”

“You two were childhood sweethearts?”

“Oh, no, you don’t get out of it that easy,” Aileen cut in, teasing with a lilting smile.

“That was how I knew I wanted to skate. I begged my parents for months…”

Their driver took them skillfully through the icy roads. Esther gripped the door more than once, but she did that any time she was in a car, no matter who was driving. She breathed a weak, wobbly sigh of relief when they reached their destination at last, and thanked the driver nonetheless as she left on unsteady legs. They entered the restaurant, and she sat gratefully, focused on taking deep breaths. All the while, Ntombi hadn’t stopped talking.

“And that’s how we got together,” she concluded, brightly, just as their waiter arrived with drinks. Esther chugged half of her water in one go.

“You all right?” Aileen asked her, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, fine. I just get carsick.” She sighed, looked at Ntombi and offered a small smile, not wanting to let on that she’d been half-present for the entire story. “That’s really sweet. You sound like you’re really happy together.”

“We _are_.” Ntombi rested her elbows on the table, propped her head in her hands and smiled blissfully. Suddenly, then, she looked sad. “This is the first competition I’ve been to without either of them. Matthieu usually goes with us whenever we compete, but…Josef wanted him to stay back and work on Chris’ routine.”

Aileen made a vague sound of dismissal. “You’ll do fine. It’s not like you’re gonna forget how to skate without them around. Thrashed me just fine in Sapporo on your own merits,” she muttered, still sounding like she was vaguely annoyed by the whole thing. Esther saw the slight, concerned look she shot her, though; noticed how Ntombi didn’t pick up on it. She shifted in her seat, feeling like an interloper—these two were clearly good friends.

“Well, what about you, Markowitz?” Aileen turned to her. “You got boy troubles?” Esther knew the look in her eyes: it was the same one that Emanuel gave her when she was teetering on the edge of an anxiety attack, the _please think about something else_ look.

“Uh…no, not really.”

“Really?” Suddenly she had Ntombi’s attention, again. “Everyone’s been talking about you and Otabek Altin since Skate America.”

“Wait—they have?” Esther felt something like panic settling over her chest, squeezing like a vice. “What are they saying?”

“Only that you spent practically the entire time dancing with each other. A _lot_ of people are disappointed. They said you look really good together, though.”

“Okay, Otabek and I, we aren’t _together_. We’re just…we’ve been friends for a while, that’s all.” _I think. I don’t know. Not that I know either of you remotely well enough to discuss this._ She slammed the rest of her water and turned to look desperately for a waiter. There were none to be found, and she turned, reluctantly, back to the table.

To their credit, Ntombi and Aileen looked contrite. “I’m sorry,” Ntombi said, quietly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No, you didn’t…” Esther sighed. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’ve just…got a lot on my mind, is all.”

“This competition has me on edge,” Aileen confessed. “Everyone here is really good. It’s almost like a Grand Prix Final lite.”

Slowly, Esther began to relax. “Yeah. There’s a good chance that a lot of us here will be going.”

Aileen nodded. Ntombi looked, uncomfortably, into her drink. “Let’s not talk about skating,” she said, with forced cheer. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

Truthfully, Esther had begun to feel better, talking about it. Perhaps she’d talk to Emanuel later; perhaps that would help. Even if he didn’t have the right thing to say, the fact that he tried at all was always enough to make her feel better. She blinked, glancing between Aileen and Ntombi in awkward silence.

“So…what do you usually talk about?” she asked. “I…don’t really have any experience hanging out with my competitors.”

Aileen propped a hand on her chin. “Yeah, I remember. You were always pretty scarce. Showed up on the ice, disappeared after, like a selkie.”

Esther chuckled. “My parents kept a pretty tight rein.” She frowned. “You were in Juniors at the same time I was?”

“Yeah. I’m nineteen. I remember looking at you and thinking ‘why do I have to share the ice with that one, it just isn’t fair.’” Her eyes narrowed, curiously. “I have a question, if you don’t mind answering—and it’s fine if you don’t. What brought you back?”

“What…like, what made me start skating again?” Aileen nodded, and Esther looked down at the tablecloth, didn’t answer right away. Plenty of people spoke to her with the question in their eyes, like they hoped she would answer it without their asking; plenty of people were brazen enough to ask her, but none of them had ever really given her the impression that they would welcome, or even understand, the truth.

“It was a video. I don’t know if you saw it…Yuuri Katsuki, from Japan—he posted a video of himself skating Viktor Nikiforov’s free skate from last year. It was so… _open_ , so deeply personal and full of longing and heartache and all the things I didn’t know I was feeling. It spoke to me. Made me realize that I didn’t want it to be over. I remembered what made me start skating in the first place—that I loved it. That out on the ice, everything makes sense.”

Aileen nodded, slowly. “Everyone was surprised, you know,” she said. “When you quit.”

“So I’ve been told,” said Esther, drily. The waiter returned with their food at last.

“I think you coming back surprised everyone more, though. Now, after Skate America, they’re saying you could give Ina Lund a run for her money.” Aileen shoved a pelmeni in her mouth, chewing ferociously. “I hope so. Can’t stand the woman.”

Esther poked lightly at her carp. “Ina Lund?” she said, faintly. “It’s a bit early for that.”

“Right,” Aileen said, shooting her a challenging smirk. “You want the chance to show her up, you’ll have to go through me first.”

Esther paused, fork stabbing lightly into her fish, but then, she grinned. “You’re on.”

Ntombi frowned. “Yuuri Katsuki…isn’t he here, too? Chris skated against him at the Cup of China.”

Esther nodded. “Yeah, he is.” She stuck a forkful of fish into her mouth, chewed as she pondered, again, over whether she wanted to share. “I’m…kind of hoping that I’ll get the chance to talk to him, at some point.”

“You should!” she beamed. “If you want, I’m sure I could introduce you! I don’t know him that well, but Chris just adores him.”

Esther dropped her head into her hands, groaning. “How come everybody is friends with Yuuri Katsuki but me?”

Talk turned to old stories from their home rinks; what they’d gotten into when they were younger, who had passed in and out of their lives—they all had, in common, the fact that they’d never moved around much for their skating. “It’s boring, out my way,” Aileen complained. “I’m the first one to make it to the international level in a long time.”

They had left the restaurant and begun walking down the street, looking into the various shop windows, entering the ones that struck their fancy.

“I’ve been in Geneva pretty much my whole career,” said Ntombi. “Ooh!” she stopped in front of a crockery shop, peering curiously in through the glass. “We’re like a family there,” she continued, though distracted by the kitchenware inside. “It’s kind of weird, though, starting to be the old ones. I only just turned twenty!”

“Do you want to go in?” Aileen asked her, deadpan.

“No…I just bought that Creuset in Alsace. I really shouldn’t…” reluctantly, she pried herself from the window, and they continued down the pavement.

“Luxembourg’s only my second rink,” Esther shared. “I’m the only one there.”

“That sounds lonely.” Ntombi sounded sympathetic.

“It can be. I don’t mind it too much.” She’d never had real bonds with her rink mates before; so she could hardly miss it now. “Emanuel and I get by fine on our own.”

“What’s he like?” Aileen asked. “Fiona’s a hardass, but it’s all for the sake of making me better. We still fight like cats, though.”

Esther was silent for a long moment. “We get along well,” was what she settled on, lame and insufficient as it seemed. “I think we’re a good fit.”

“Hey,” Ntombi broke in, stopping short at the window to the boutique on their right. “Is that who I think it is?” Esther paused, took in the two distinctly male figures standing with their backs to the window.

“If you’re thinking ‘that’s Emil Nekola’, then you’re right.” Before any of them could say anything more, Aileen rapped on the glass, prompting the two to turn around—sure enough, it was Emil, accompanied by Michele Crispino. Emil greeted them with a bright grin and a wave, and he called into the store behind him before going to the door. He emerged onto the street and promptly gave Aileen what looked like a backbreaking hug. “Hey, Nekola, fancy meeting you here!”

“Hi, Aileen!” he let her go, and gave Ntombi the same treatment. “Ntombi.” He turned to Esther, and suddenly, she found herself being lifted a few inches off the ground. “Esther! I haven’t seen you since…was it Minsk? Three years ago!” He set her down.

“Good to see you too, Emil,” she said, half-laughing; mostly because it had been Minsk, they’d spoken for less than a minute, and she was about halfway certain he’d been in a closet with Suzanne later. The bell on the boutique’s door jingled as more people joined them on the pavement: Michele Crispino, who scanned over the three of them before nodding to himself, was carrying several bags. Also present, and not initially visible from the windows, were his sister Sara, along with Mila Babicheva. “Wow!” Sara beamed at them. “It’s like a ladies’ singles meetup!”

“We were just passing by when we saw the lads in the window,” Aileen explained.

“We went out for lunch,” Ntombi added. “We didn’t realize you guys were out, too. We could’ve gone together!”

“That’s a good idea, Sara,” Michele nudged her. “You should spend some time with the other girls.”

At once, Mila and Sara stifled laughter behind their hands. “What’s so funny?” he grumbled, put out.

“You’re so funny, Mickey!” Sara patted his elbow.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Mila asked, sizing them up with a critical eye.

Aileen drew herself up taller. “Hell yeah, I’m ready. I’d start today if they’d let us.”

 _Whoa,_ Esther thought, glancing between the two of them. _Guess there’s only room for one redhead in the Final._

“I’m looking forward to seeing you skate tomorrow,” she said, pleasantly. It was probably meant for all three of them, but she’d looked straight at Esther when she said it, and she’d felt the adrenaline rush down her sternum. Mila smiled and hooked her arm in Sara’s. “We’ll see you guys later.” They headed cheerily down the street, and the boys said their goodbyes as well, following after them.

“I think I’m gonna head back to the hotel,” Esther spoke. It wasn’t a conscious thought, so much as something she’d been ignoring for a few hours, now. “I’m fine. I just want to rest.”

Aileen and Ntombi sent her off with promises to see her tomorrow, and call them if she was feeling up to dinner. Esther agreed to do so, even though she already knew the answer. As soon as the cab drove off, she sighed and collapsed back into the seat, kept her eyes closed until they were back at the hotel.

“Making friends with competitors is weird,” she complained, as soon as Emanuel let her into his room so she could pitch face-first onto the bed. She surfaced to find him giving her a fond smile. “What’s that look for?”

“You’ve continued to impress me with your sportsmanship, Esther. You were very kind to those girls at Skate America.”

“Ugh. That was different, though.” She rolled onto her back and scrubbed her hands over her eyelids. “Yu and Nava are young, still. _I’m_ the baby here. Everyone else is freakishly good.” She sighed, let her arms splay out, stared at the ceiling with a small, incredulous laugh. “I don’t feel remotely ready. At the rink, earlier? I lied. I’m not ready.”

“You are,” said Emanuel, never once looking up for his book.

“I’ve avoided thinking about it for the past few weeks, but now that I’m here, I can’t ignore it anymore. I just…I feel like something bad is going to happen.”

“That’s your anxiety talking.”

“I know. That doesn’t make it go away.”

From across the room, there was the sound of whispering pages, a book being closed, footsteps crossing the floor. Emanuel sat beside her and waited for her to sit up. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

Esther led her head flop sideways onto his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Believing in you,” he replied.

It took her a moment; for her to remember, for her lips to twitch weakly into a smile. “Thanks, Coach.”


	9. Ready To Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [my tumblr](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/), where I post updates and art, and love to talk about Esther on Ice.
> 
> art: [slow theme](https://orig00.deviantart.net/4445/f/2017/274/e/0/slow_theme_by_vigilante_archangel-dbp5j3u.png)
>
>> “ _The gala began with the ice dancers. Esther had always admired them for their grace, but it was never something she felt she could do. Pairs had never been attractive to her—whether that was because her parents had done it, or because she’d never met anyone she could imagine skating beside…she looked out of the corner of her eye at Otabek, but he was focused on the performances._ ”

After failing to think of anything else to pass the time, Esther laid out on her bed and thumbed aimlessly through her phone. Her mind was racing, wouldn’t stay still no matter what she did. Just after her room service arrived, her phone started buzzing—a brief glance at the caller ID had her heart doing a quick flip-flop in her chest.

“Hey, Beka.” She sat on the mattress, legs tucked under her, dinner forgotten, not that she was feeling that hungry anyway.

“ _Hey. I hope you’re not busy_.”

“No, I’m just in my room.”

“ _I wanted to wish you luck. For tomorrow_.”

Her pulse spiked again. She took a deep breath, fought it down and tried not to think about it. “Thanks.” There was a brief pause. “Can I ask you something?”

“ _Sure_.”

“How do you…be friends with your competitors?”

A brief silence. “ _I try to see them like they’re just other people. We’re all skaters, and sometimes that means we compete against each other, but it also means that, in some ways, we understand each other better_.” He paused, briefly. “ _I’m curious…about why you would ask me_.” He sounded…embarrassed, almost. “ _I’m friendly with my competitors. I wouldn’t say that I’m friends with any of them_.”

Esther bit her tongue on the contradictions that instinctively arose; he was speaking introvert, and “friend” was something reserved for the people closest to your heart. By no means did it diminish the other relationships in life—the role of friend was simply more specific, narrower than it was for some others. The connotation didn’t translate very well, though, and thus, she was used to accommodating terminology, saying _my friend_ when she meant _my acquaintance, who I enjoy the company of._ She forgot, sometimes, that she didn’t have to translate for Otabek.

“ _You’d probably have more luck asking Leo_.”

“Yeah.” She picked at a stray thread on her comforter and tried to avoid the urge to start chewing on her cuticles. Emanuel would kill her if she showed up to breakfast with ragged fingers. “I wanted to ask you, though.”

Pauses in their conversations weren’t atypical. Usually, they felt familiar, comfortable and lived-in, but they were doing nothing for her at the moment.

“Thanks for calling me. I should probably hang up now. Get an early night.”

“ _Okay. Sleep well. I’ll be watching tomorrow_.”

 _You and the rest of the world._ Esther swallowed her heart back down, and said goodbye.

She stomached as much of her dinner as she could stand and proceeded to lie awake for hours, her mind full of so much that it felt utterly empty. She turned over, kicked the covers off, pulled them back on, then pushed the comforter onto the floor. She looked over at the clock, beheld the red, accusatory _4:18_ with a kind of curious, mounting dread that she refused to contemplate too deeply.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because she woke up again at eleven in the morning, drifted off again, and came up at half past two, wherein she finally dragged herself out of bed, feeling slightly dead on her feet.

It was a problem for her future self—right now, she was going to watch the men perform.

Her event card got her into the Megasport without trouble, and near the rink. She stopped short as she spotted Aileen and Ntombi, already there.

It seemed that the entire ladies’ singles bracket had a vested interest in the men. _Of course. The singles skaters are always friends, nothing weird about that…_

“Oi, Markowitz!” Aileen waved her over. Esther climbed up and took a seat beside them. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah.” After so much exercise throughout her life, the lie came easy. “Who’s up first?”

“The Korean buck. Seung-gil Lee.” Aileen reclined in her seat, watching Group One down below. “He was at NHK with you, wasn’t he, Bee?”

“What?” Ntombi shook her head. “Oh. Right. Yeah. He’s really good.”

 _Not as good as my Beka._ Esther eyed him, curious. His costume’s purple trousers looked almost comical protruding from his black jacket.

“Don’t tell me you’re buying into all of that nonsense. Everyone and their mother these days, it’s all ‘oh, Seung-gil Lee!’”

Esther thought, briefly, of Chuenchai. Were she in a better mood, she might have laughed.

“What? No! I don’t like Seung-gil.”

“Good. You need another man like you need a hole in your fuckin’ head.”

Just like that, the warm-up was ending, Seung-gil was skating to the side and handing his jacket over to his coach before turning aloofly away and taking his place at the center of the ice. He was the picture of control, even as the music started.

It was different, here at the Rostelecom Cup—everyone’s secrets were already out. Their routines had all been performed before. Seung-gil’s quadruple loop was certainly impressive, even more so in person, but the only surprises left were the ones that had no tether to their plans: he fell on his triple axel, which had Esther hissing in a breath. _Oh, God, I hope I don’t do that._ Her knee bounced compulsively beneath her balled-up fist.

In the end, he still set a new personal best and took an early lead, one that Emil, right after him, failed to breach.

Michele was up next. His sister was at the rink side with him, and he kissed her hand before skating out.

Ntombi giggled. “He really is oblivious.” Esther, absent three years from the ladies’ circuit, thought of asking what she meant, but her mind was foggy enough to be overtaken by Aileen.

Aideen just made a thoughtful noise, and Ntombi gave her a look. “What?”

Ntombi pushed at Aileen’s arm. Esther swallowed down a sudden wave of nausea. _God, what the fuck is happening to me?_ She didn’t remember anything of Michele’s performance, and after it was over, Ntombi reached around and touched her shoulder.

“Esther, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She looked up to see Yuuri Katsuki down at the sidelines, leaning on the wall as his coach tied up his skate. _I’m going to be._

Viktor Nikiforov was back on his home turf, and it showed—even as Yuuri took the ice, it was Viktor they were cheering for. He waved to his adoring public with a smile wider and more relaxed than anything Esther remembered from past performances.

Yuuri grabbed at his tie and pulled him back around. “Oh, my,” Aileen said, under her breath. He spoke something in Viktor’s ear, and he didn’t wait for a reply, just skated out to the middle of the ice. Esther took a deep breath, wondered if she’d be able to suck in some of his confidence. Silence, except for the thunder of her heart, as they waited for the music to begin.

What was immediately clear was that he was in top form. He’d progressed beyond even the Cup of China—his jumps were flawless, his footwork was crisp, and his performance was scorching. Esther was breathless by the end, had forgotten everything else.

He set a new personal best, again. Viktor leaned over to envelop him in a tight hug. Esther thought of the kiss in Beijing, and found her heart was aching, even as Aileen was laughing at Viktor for kneeling and kissing his skate. _Is that what you can do when you don’t feel alone?_

She tried not to think about it; when she did, she felt stupid and selfish, because she _wasn’t_ alone, she _knew_ that, she had friends and her coach and plenty of other people in her life. To sit and long for another kind of love felt…ungrateful, in a way, but at the same time, it was an ache so deep, so fierce, that it sometimes got too big to ignore.

_Almost like coming back after three years and wanting gold right off the bat._

Her throat seized up; she couldn’t breathe. “I have to go.” She stood, quickly; Aileen and Ntombi gave her concerned, puzzled looks.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Plisetsky’s about to go on.”

“I’ll see you guys later.” Esther shuffled out of the seats, went down the steps, and walked quickly into the lobby, where she stood breathing until the flash of panic had passed her by. She got a cab back to the Star, half-stumbled up to her room, collapsed onto the bed, bizarrely close to tears. _What is wrong with you? You wanted to see him, and you had to go to your room and cry. Will you make up your mind? You’re the one who told everyone you were going to win, you can’t feel sorry for yourself now. You did this to yourself, you weak idiot, you stupid piece of shit…_

She didn’t know when she fell asleep, just that she woke up to Emanuel’s knock. “Esther?”

“Coming, hold on.” She jumped up and sprinted to the door, best she could in the confined space.

His face changed when he saw her; his head tilted. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Yeah,” she waved him in. “Why?”

“You have red marks all over the side of your face.” Once the door was closed, he examined them, tutting. “All right, into the chair. I assumed you were out with the others.”

“I was. I came back early.”

She waited for his commentary, but he said nothing, just began gathering her hair for the braid along the back of her skull. He worked in silence, and Esther sat still, somewhat grateful that there was nothing to distract her from breathing in seven, holding seven, breathing out ten—but it contributed, too, put her in a space to wonder what was in his head as well as her own.

“I don’t know why they put you on so late,” he complained, as they entered the Megasport. Esther was the last in group one—Sofia was on first.

Her performance, solid as it had been at the Trophée de France, had evolved overnight—Esther didn’t know much about her, just that she was notoriously reserved. Tonight, it seemed like her whole heart was on display. Every movement of her body was steeped in emotion, full of longing, completely at odds with who she was off the ice. The music was slow, yearning; she seemed so tight, wrapped up in a tension that seemed like it would never resolve—and it didn’t, ended bittersweet and gave her a new personal best.

_The short program score for Sofia Borisova is 69.25. She is currently in first place._

Esther swallowed. Emanuel rested his hand on her shoulder. It failed to be the comforting weight it usually was.

Aileen went up next—she really looked exquisite in green and black. Her music was soaring, energetic, very nearly majestic, and almost too much for her routine. There were moments that left her waiting for jumps, but Aileen was nearly a dancer on the ice.

_The short program score for Aileen Ahearne is 63.89. She is currently in second place._

Aileen’s brow creased grimly as she received her score. Her coach leaned over and said a few things to her; both got up and left. Aileen wanted badly to qualify for the Final; she’d never needed to say as much.

And then it was her turn.

 _Oh God._ Her throat squeezed up so suddenly that her heart skipped beats. The rink faded in and out, Emanuel was speaking in front of her and she couldn’t hear him.

Her eyes darted to the exit. _I can’t do this, I can’t, I can’t—_

It was a half-faded memory, _get out on that ice, or so help me, I will,_ that sent her away from the wall, into the middle. _Okay, deep breaths, Esther, oh shit, that’s my cue._

It was off. _Fuck, it’s off, fuck, fuck, fuck_ —every moment felt like she was about to fall out. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way on the ice; before Skate America, certainly before Emanuel. _Oh God, oh God, oh God—_

She stumbled coming out of her spin, skidded until she could get ungracefully to her feet and hurry into the step sequence. _Don’t cry, don’t you dare cry._ Her legs were weak as she approached the end; her signature triple axel was barely a single.

Somehow, she finished. _How the fuck do you fuck up on a spin? Who falls on a spin?_

It was her worst performance yet. No one had to tell her that—she could feel it in her bones, could see it in Emanuel’s eyes as she exited to the kiss and cry.

They were silent on the bench. “What happened?” he asked her, softly, sounding bewildered and sad all at once. It broke her heart afresh, and she could only shake her head and bite her lip.

_The short program score for Esther Markowitz is 61.57. She is currently in third place._

It wouldn’t last, not with Mila Babicheva and the gold medalists yet to go.

She dodged the cameras on her way out, didn’t stop until she reached the bathroom, until she’d locked the stall door behind her and collapsed onto the rim of the seat, buried her face in her hands to muffle the noise. Within moments, her palms were slick with tears, her eyes stung with salt.

Esther was, at the very least, efficient with these things. In a few moments, it was over: she wiped her face with toilet paper, and proceeded to the sink to scrub away the makeup that had run—not too much, thankfully, Emanuel’s stuff was resistant. Once she was relatively composed, she returned. By that time, Mila had only just finished her performance, to raucous applause from her home country.

Esther had seen her performance at NHK: the music was a delicate, masterful blend of oboe, strings, and voice, and the routine matched, lending power a grace and elegance many could only dream of. It was a well-known fact that Mila Babicheva landed her jumps with both arms raised—her GOE was obscene.

_The short program score for Mila Babicheva is 73.93. She is currently in first place._

She found Emanuel as Ntombi prepared to go on and sat beside him. He didn’t look at her, and she was disappointed and grateful all at once.

Ntombi’s music was perfectly suited to her personality. Her performance at NHK had been nothing short of electrifying.

What became clear almost right away was that this performance was not the one from NHK. Ntombi two-footed the landing on her first triple Lutz, wobbled, and went crashing to the ice. Esther winced in sympathy. Her combination in the second half, a triple Loop-double salchow, turned into a mere single. When she sat in the kiss and cry, Josef Karpisek wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

_The short program score for Ntombi Kotze is 57.91. She is currently in fifth place._

Ntombi put her face in her hands. Josef stood and left, taking her with him.

Sara Crispino was the last to go on. Her routine had been one of the most unexpected, an alternative number that seemed to contrast directly with her established, lyrical style. She’d embraced it beautifully, though, and provoked many discussions about her evolving capabilities.

The crowd thundered as she landed her signature combo, smiling brightly through her flawless red lipstick. Something clicked into place as she watched her stick the landing, some ember of determination that ignited within her.

 _I have to be better than this. I_ am _better than this._

 _The short program score for Sara Crispino is 71.93. She is currently in second place._ Her brother was in the kiss and cry with her, and he hugged her tightly when the announcement came.

She and Emanuel returned to the hotel. Through the ride, he said nothing, and she was too wrapped in her own head to try and coax him out—when they reached their floor, she didn’t go into her room, followed him, instead, to his.

“I’m going to do better tomorrow.”

No reply, save for a weary sigh that left his shoulders drooping, like he’d been consciously carrying them high all night. He shrugged off his jacket and began undoing his tie, his back to her all the while.

“Coach?” her voice sounded thin, and she wrestled it under control before she spoke again. “What’s on your mind?”

“I know by now that nothing I ever say to you could be harsher than what you tell yourself.”

Esther’s brows furrowed. It was an answer, but not to the question she’d asked. “Be honest with me, here. You’re my coach. I’m asking for you to _coach_ me. Tell me what you’re thinking.” _If only to make sure I’m not crazy._

Emanuel sighed, seemed to gather himself before turning to face her. At once, she bore the full weight of his tired, disappointed gaze. “Your performance was exactly as it was at Skate America, weeks ago. If anything, it was worse. You and I both know it’s progressed miles since then.” He pulled his tie from his collar and wrapped it loosely around his hand. He looked steadily, then, at the floor, continuing with a mixture of reluctance and bitter honesty. “I don’t know why you can’t nail this routine in competition.”

It hit her like a shot in the gut. She breathed through it, nodded. “I’ll do better tomorrow.”

Emanuel looked up, but it was her return to examine the carpet. “Esther, you know I—”

“I should go.”

“…right. It’s late, after all.” Emanuel turned away, looked, ostensibly, out the window.

Esther left him. When she returned to her room, there were several message notifications on her phone. There was only one that she really cared about.

She must have composed at least half a dozen replies, before she finally settled on one. She hit _send_ , showered, and climbed into bed without bothering to check for a reply.

 

* * *

 

Pairs bridged the gap between the men’s and ladies’ free skate, but Esther wasn’t there. She appeared on time for Emanuel’s ritual dolling-up, trailed three steps behind him and one to the left as they entered the arena.

She’d paused once to view Yuuri Katsuki’s free skate via the livestream—Viktor was nowhere to be found, and _Yuuri on Ice_ was lackluster, messy, barely able to scrape into the Final, which he did merely by virtue of his silver from the Cup of China. But he’d made it, nonetheless.

 _Let’s both make it._ Her fists tightening until they burned. She stored it inside of her, set her phone aside and went back to it.

Aileen found her by the rink side as Ntombi prepared to open. “Ntombi’s been feeling low since yesterday. I gave her a bit of talk. We’ll see if she took it to heart.”

“Hm,” said Esther.

Ntombi’s routine was a shadow of what it had been at the Trophée de France. She came off the ice looking disappointed, but resigned. When she received her score, she stood and blew a kiss to the stands and headed out, flanked closely by her coach.

And then it was her turn. “Knock ‘em out,” Aileen told her, and Emanuel patted her once on the back as she put her blade to the ice.

The crowd faded to a distant sound as she headed to the middle, and there she waited, eyes shut. The music began, the lights were blinding as she looked up at them.

 _Everyone here is more experienced than me._ She fell into the steps, more than second nature by now. _They’ve all got their thing, and me? I’m just the upstart who thinks she can kick her way right into the middle._ First combo, the doubles—

She could _feel_ the change in energy as she touched down, lowering her arms from where they’d stretched above her head, landing with her hands spread wide in display. _How about that?_

Her first solo jump approached. _I may not know who I am yet, but I know what I can do._ The triple loop was perfect, and her arms had been raised for that too, but she wondered if she’d imagined the gasp of surprise. It had been a triple axel at Skate America.

 _I belong here, I’ll prove that if it’s the last damn thing I do._ Her skates bit into the ice when she went in for her flying sit spin, she was nearly out of her mind with it, burning up in a blaze, she had to die first to be reborn, a phoenix out of the ashes. Triple Lutz, arms up; triple flip, arms up, landing with a flourish.

All of the day had been spent in one of the dime-a-dozen ice rinks that dotted Moscow, sweat pouring off her skin as she drilled, mercilessly, stopping only so that she’d have the energy to get through the night. Even so, adrenaline had chased the pain away, and now she was only burning, blazing,

 _Watch this._ She approached her combination, and at the last moment, swiveled around, faced it head-on.

Esther threw her arms up and kicked off.

She’d only managed the triple axel with her arms up about three out of four times, and that was by itself, not even chasing it with the Lutz, but by some miracle of the moment, she landed it—a little shakily, her ankle wobbled, and there was a single, heart-rending second where she was sure it would twist under her, but she landed it—to deafening applause.

 _Anything you can be, I can be greater,_ she grinned, thinking of Nava’s program, and swung into her butterfly spin. _My name is Esther Markowitz. I walked away once, but I came back, because I’m the best figure skater in the world. I’m the only one who can show them that._

Her final axel felt like flying cut short, like a shackle that went taut and returned her to the ice before she was ready—but the crowd was roaring, and her routine was over, so she raised her arms to them and bowed.

She turned and skated to the kiss and cry, and nearly stopped dead at the look in Emanuel’s eye. A chill ran through her, and it had nothing to do with the ice. In the end, her hesitation only lasted a moment.

“We’ll talk about this,” he said, when she took her seat next to him, and nothing more.

  _The free program score for Esther Markowitz is 123.67. Her overall score is 185.24. She is currently in first place._

It was a new personal best. Somewhere, Esther found the wherewithal to smile and wave—the exhaustion was setting in, and they had four performances to go, and a medal ceremony.

Emanuel stood up, and she hurried to follow him. He looked meaningfully at the door, and started for the lobby. He waved off the journalists that approached them. “Excuse us, please. Not right now.”

He led her to a relatively secluded corridor, glancing around for eavesdroppers before facing her with folded arms, hissing through his teeth, “What was _that_?”

At first, Esther couldn’t speak, too shaken by his sudden show of anger. “That?” She couldn’t tell what she was feeling—indignation, hurt, anger? _God, I don’t know, it’s like—fog, oh fuck, oh_ fuck _—_

“Because, from where I stood, it looked like you switching up your choreography at the _last_ minute, without speaking about it with me, your _coach_ —it looked like you taking absurdly foolish risks, is what it looked like!”

“ _Everyone_ here has a thing!” she retorted. “They are all better than me, they all know what they’re doing, if I don’t take a few risks, I’m never going to be able to beat them.”

“You could’ve sprained your ankle coming out of that combo, or _worse_. Don’t think no one noticed; you can sweep it under the rug now because you’re young and you think you’re fucking _immortal_ , but I will not let you endanger your career with stupid moves like that.”

_Esther Deborah, I will not let you—_

Her breath was coming far too quickly, but she couldn’t stop it; it felt like fire, and there was nothing to do but be consumed.

“Right, we can’t have that. I break my leg and that’s not just me, that’s you too.” Her fists clenched until her palms were stinging; she didn’t know if her nails were cutting in, but it felt like they were. “Because you need me as your _fucking_ proxy up onto the podium.”

“For Christ’s sake, Esther!” he spat, “Are you really not able to see what this is about?” She fell silent, shaken, but Emanuel just shook his head, muttered under his breath and left her alone in the corridor.

 

* * *

 

Even Sara Crispino fell short of her score. She congratulated her as they took their photos. Esther acknowledged her with a brief, pasted-on smile and a nearly-inaudible _grazie_. Mila had won gold, and she was positively radiant in front of the cameras—radiant enough, Esther hoped, that her own less effusive appearance would be glossed over.

It was a hollow victory. _I’m going to the Final,_ she reminded herself, but it wasn’t enough, it was never _enough_ , it was just the same as it had been at Skate America, and she wasn’t content to be second best.

She wasn’t really content to be _any_ thing, not while Emanuel wouldn’t even look at her. When they returned to the hotel, he shut himself in his room, and Esther let him. Her phone buzzed: there were messages of congratulations from her friends. Jay had even sent her a snapchat of the ladies’ singles qualifiers for Barcelona, with her own name circled and underscored by exclamation marks.

She didn’t have it in her to answer any of them, nor to feel much of anything, really. The fog was closing around her, reaching for her with misty tendrils, but her fear was drowned in cough-syrupy sweet exhaustion. God, she was so tired, but her eyes just wouldn’t stay closed.

Her phone buzzed again. Then, again. She sat up and looked at the screen, felt her heart in her throat at the contact name. _He can’t see me like this,_ she thought, and let it run out.

Seconds later, he was calling again. _Please no._ She trembled as the phone buzzed, accusing, _this is what you did last time._

Before she could change her mind, Esther jabbed _accept._

Otabek’s face came onto the screen, grainy and poorly-lit, but smiling. “Hey.”

“Beka, I did something terrible,” she said, without preamble—and her voice shook, the tears were starting to spill over, but it was a glorious relief, as the fog receded for the rawness of feeling.

He was mostly quiet as she cried, breaking the silence with an occasional, “It’s okay, let it out.” When she’d finished, blown her nose and wiped her eyes, he asked her, “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” she assured him. “Well, I’m _not_ , but I’m not hurt or anything. Nothing like that.”

“Is this about getting silver? Because your routine was amazing, you know that was just something I was saying, about the gold—”

Esther took a deep, quivering breath, shaking her head. “No. No, Beka, it’s not…” another deep breath. “It’s…a lot of things.” Suddenly, she swallowed, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to unload all of my shit—”

“Esther,” he cut in, firmly; in that tone that always stopped her dead in her tracks. It really wasn’t fair. “You’re my friend. I want to do what I can to help you, even if it’s just listening.”

For a moment, she hovered dangerously close, again, to tears.

“It’s just…” her voice wobbled, watery. “I’m frustrated. I _know_ I’m better than this, but it’s like…I’m self-sabotaging, so I just…I tried to find a way to be better, you know, but now Coach is pissed off at me, and I freaked out and I said something really terrible—”

“Coaches and skaters fight all the time,” he took over for her, when she had to get herself under control again. “You’re going to be fine.”

“I know that. But Emanuel isn’t…” she rubbed her hand against the fresh batch of tears that fell when she blinked. “He’s not just…a _coach_ to me.”

She opened her blurry eyes—Otabek was regarding her with caution, but he didn’t look judgmental. “Does he know that?”

Miserably, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I feel like such an idiot. He said he believed in me, and we started living together, and he gives me life advice, and…somewhere along the way I was stupid enough to start fantasizing about what my life would’ve been like. If he would’ve been my father instead.”

Otabek blinked and looked off to the side. He seemed…oddly relieved. “I think you should talk to him.”

“Really?”

“I think so. I don’t know what’s been going on between you two, but there’s usually nothing better for it than honesty.” He shrugged. “It worked for us.”

Esther felt a weak smile coming through. The fog wasn’t gone, but it was at bay. “I guess it did.” She raised her sleeve to swipe over her eyes again. “I don’t know why I was afraid to let you see me like this. I guess I thought…if you knew how much of a mess I was, you wouldn’t want to hang around.”

His eyes were so soft when they looked at her, she thought he was about to say something like _you know I would never…_

“I wish I was there,” he said.

“You…here?”

“Yes. So I could be with you.”

She smiled, soft and fond, at the crease in his forehead, the brooding tilt of his brows. He never had been good with words—he’d always been more of a shoulder; to lean on, to cry on. Unbidden, the warmth of his hands came back to her from Chicago, and she had to swallow through a suddenly very dry throat.

“You’ll see me,” she reminded him, “In Barcelona.”

His eyes were soft again. “I can’t wait.”

She smiled at him, curling in around the warmth that ignited like a glowing ember under her heart. “Me too.”

“You need to talk to your coach.”

“I know.”

“Promise me you will?”

“Yeah. Okay. I promise.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Esther reclined on the pillows and sighed. “I don’t know, Beka. I think…first I’d have to know what okay means, but…as it stands, I don’t think I’m ever just _okay_. Sometimes I’m better, other days…everything is going right for me, and I feel like I should be happy about it, but it just kind of feels like a whole lot of nothing.” She looked up, observed where the wallpaper was coming loose at an edge. “Right now I’m feeling…alone.”

There was a brief silence from the other end. “I could get on a flight to Moscow, you know.”

“No,” she shot him a stern look, knowing full well that he’d do it, too. “It’s not just…that. I can deal with being alone. It’s weird. When I get like this. Like my head fills up with nothing, and there’s no room for anything, not even my thoughts, even though there’s nothing there. Like being stuck in a soundproofed room. So quiet, I can’t hear myself think.” Her throat tightened, threatening more tears. “I know there are people who care about me, but I can’t trust that, even when they tell me themselves. I’m alone, and it feels like I’ll never be _not_ alone. Anymore.” She covered her face in her hands. “God, it’s so—I’m so—”

She took a long moment to breathe, remembered, faintly, what Dr. Patel had told her for this. It was a long moment before she resurfaced: she’d forgotten Otabek, still on her screen, watching her with a sadness so deep, she couldn’t bear to look at him for more than a moment.

“Esther.” The gentle invocation of her name brought her back from where she’d turned away in shame, and when she faced him, his expression was schooled into something more familiar. “I want to help you. Is there something I can do?”

She took a deep breath, and went still with the force of her own realization. It took another iteration of her name to bring her back.

“There’s…not really anything you can do,” she said, dully. “I…I’m never going to get better. There’s no recovering from this. All I can really do is…keep trying different coping mechanisms, find the ones that work the best, but no matter how good they are, I’m still going to have to deal with this. For the rest of my life. My brain just…doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. I have to live with it.”

Otabek was completely silent—not one of their content, _thank you for being here with me and understanding me_ silences, nor an _I’m listening and I know you know I’m listening and I understand what you’re saying_ silence, or

 _That’s it. I’ve finally scared him off. Now I really will be alone._ In a flash, grim acceptance threatened to change into gripping panic. _No, no, no, breathe—_

“Okay,” he said, finally, startling her into heart-pounding stillness; like if she moved an inch, she would miss what he was about to say. “We can talk about it in Barcelona. You tell me what I need to learn about. When you’re feeling up to it.”

Esther blinked. Visions of clinic pamphlets danced behind her eyelids; _Your Depression and You_. She winced. “I don’t—”

“I’m not giving up on you.” He said it with the same quiet assuredness that he did everything, but somehow, this time, it reached deep inside of her and brought the tears up like he’d tapped into a vein. This time, she let them come, leave hot trails on her cheeks and drip onto her arms. Then, she let out a small, incredulous laugh, sniffled unattractively.

“Are you feeling better?”

“I…yeah.” She nodded. “I am.”

“Good. I mean it, about sending me things.”

She nodded again. “Okay. You’ve convinced me.” They fell silent, smiling at each other across thousands of miles. She wanted to say something, could feel it fighting its way from her heart and into her throat.

Otabek stifled a yawn. Esther looked quickly to the clock, face warming, moment forgotten. “Oh, shit. Beka, it’s late. You need to go to sleep.”

He finished yawning, ran an absent hand through his hair. Esther hesitated, drawn to the motion, and swallowed. “You should too.” Guiltily, she looked away, fearing, absurdly, that he’d noticed. “You have your exhibition tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I’ll call you tomorrow, before I get on the plane.”

He gave her one of his small smiles. “Okay.”

Esther swallowed, again, stretched out on the bed and stared at him in the grainy picture on her screen, tried to memorize his face down to the last detail. “Night, Beka.”

“Goodnight, Esther.” The picture wobbled, froze, and then went black. Esther shut her phone off and set it on the bedspread next to her, and didn’t move for a long time.

 

* * *

 

The following day, Emanuel was silent beyond the occasional, perfunctory answer or statement. He turned on the charm for the cameras, but Esther knew him well enough by now to know when he was faking it. His English was most certainly passable, but foreign enough to him to cover up any ingenuine sentiment that might have come through.

Esther conducted her interviews in Russian, borne of long habit and courtesy to the local anchors—it had the added benefit of being indistinguishable to her coach, so that, when she was asked by one of the reporters, _how would you describe your relationship with your coach?_ she could look over at him and answer, “ _He’s more than a coach to me. He’s been my first and most important supporter, on and off the ice._ ”

 _If only it were that easy to tell him that._ The thought occurred to her, briefly, of allowing the translated interview to make its way to him through the internet, but it was never something she considered seriously. _I might be emotionally vacant and severely mentally ill, but Esther Markowitz is no coward._

Still, the exhibition came and went without her ever finding a chance to bring it up. She passed the hours before the banquet pacing in her room, trying to think of something to say. The hour came; she admitted defeat and put on her dress. Emanuel didn’t come to her door—they left separately and arrived alone. She spotted him across the ballroom as she came in, considered going to him, but he was currently deep in discussion with Yakov Feltsman, and her nerve failed her.

Instead, she found Aileen and Ntombi, standing around near the refreshment table. _Oh, thank God, a country that’s going to let me drink._ She tossed back a flute of the champagne, pausing to wince at the taste— _shit, now I really sound like Emanuel_ —and immediately picked up another.

“What’re _you_ drinking like that for?” Aileen cocked her eyebrow.

“Aileen,” Ntombi shot her a reproachful look.

“Sorry.” Aileen sighed, and offered her hand. Her dress was green; it shone like an emerald and brilliantly set off her copper hair. “Congratulations on making it to the Final.”

“Thank you.” Esther shook it, awkwardly. Aileen had missed qualifying by only a few points.

“You’re going to do great,” Ntombi added.

Esther took another large swig of her champagne. “Please…don’t say things like that now,” she said, and immediately regretted it as Ntombi’s face fell. “I’m sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

With a small sigh, Ntombi folded her hands in front of her. “I know what you mean.” For a long time, they stood in silence, until Aileen inhaled deeply, letting it all out on a gusty sigh.

“Sorry, girls, I’m gonna call it a night.”

“But you just got here,” Ntombi pointed out.

“Yep.” Following in Esther’s vein, Aileen picked up a champagne flute and drained it in seconds, setting it back on the table and folding her hands under her arms. “I’m not really feeling it. I’m sorry, Bee.” She looked at Esther, said, “Good luck in Barcelona,” and headed straight to the exit.

Esther glanced sidelong at Ntombi, afraid she might deflate, but she just sighed and shook her head. “She always wants to fix everyone else, but she’ll die before she admits there’s anything wrong.”

“She disappointed?”

Ntombi chuckled bitterly. “You think?”

Esther looked at her, slowly rotating the stem of her glass between her fingers. “You are too.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “In myself, for falling apart the minute they weren’t here. Aileen was right. I’m too dependent. This was supposed to be my _year_. I built an entire _program_ around that, and now I look like an idiot.”

“No one thinks that,” Esther said, so quickly that she nearly forgot to remember where she’d heard those kinds of self-deprecating words before. “The season isn’t over. You’ve got your nationals, and 4CC, Worlds…”

Ntombi stared down at the carpet. “Yeah,” she said, finally. “You’re right. I know that. I just…still hate that it happened this way.”

Esther nodded. “Yeah. I…I know what that’s like.” She looked out over the ballroom, eyes lingering on the dance floor before they found Emanuel. “If it’s any consolation, things aren’t really going the way I’d like them to, either.”

Ntombi just hummed in response. _They never do,_ Esther thought, and looked again at the dance floor.

“Can I ask you something?” she spoke up.

Ntombi turned to her, curious. “Sure.”

“Your boyfriends,” Esther reached up to fiddle with her Magen David. “How did you know that you loved them? When did you realize it?” She turned to her, chewed her lip and awaited her answer.

She’d worried that Ntombi would think it was an odd question, but if anything, she looked happy to contemplate it. “I think I fell in love with Chris the moment I saw him. Of course, I didn’t understand it at the time. But as I got to know him, I wanted to be around him all the time. I wanted to share everything that I was with him, and learn everything about him in return. I wanted to go to sleep next to him and for him to be the first thing I saw when I woke up. Make breakfast in the morning and tell each other everything that we did that day.”

Esther tilted her glass to and fro, stared into the swirling depths and hoped Ntombi couldn’t hear her heart pounding, where she was standing.

“Matthieu was different, in a way. Slower. I was older when I fell for him. I mean, like eighteen is so much older than fifteen!” she laughed. “But…I knew I was in love with him, because I felt the same way about him that I had about Chris for years before that.” She turned to Esther, and she was radiant, glowing from the inside out. _I wonder if I ever look like that_. “Does that answer your question?”

“Uh…yeah.” Esther swallowed, took a sip of her champagne and looked desperately around for something she could stare at without it being weird. She took a deep breath, bit her lip and turned with her eyes closed. “Did you, um. You know. Want to…have sex with him? Them.” She looked quickly away again, her face feeling about halfway to the merlot of her dress. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m sorry.”

Ntombi was giving her a curious look—Esther was too preoccupied swallowing the last of her drink to look at her, but she could feel it coming from her right side—“No, I don’t mind,” she giggled. “I mean…of course I wanted to have sex with them. You’ve _seen_ Chris.”

Esther suppressed her reflexive wince. “Yeah…”

Ntombi looked her over, humming. “Okay, I answered your questions. So, humor me…why do you ask?”

Esther contemplated picking up another glass of champagne, but her more sensible side won out. “No reason, really,” she said, lamely.

“No?” Ntombi prodded, drawing out the ‘ _o_ ’. “You know, that’s a really gorgeous dress. It really shows off your best features.” She looked, pointedly, from the long slit up the side, to the clinging waist, to the low neckline. “I wondered if you were wearing it to impress somebody here.” Her eyebrows shot up. “Is that why you’re so nervous? Aw! Who is it? I promise I won’t tell them. Wait, is it Emil?” she gasped. “Weren’t you two in Juniors together? He seemed like he was really happy to see you, too! You two would be so cute.”

“No!” Esther cut in, and Ntombi had the good grace to look apologetic.

“Sorry. I got carried away. You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to.”

She contemplated it, and quite seriously, staring intently at her hands. Another, increasingly vocal part of her was tired of running from it.

“It’s Otabek,” she admitted.

“I _knew_ it!”

Esther looked at her through narrowed eyes. “You were just saying how I’d be cute with Emil.”

“Well, I wanted to be supportive of your choices,” Ntombi huffed. “I was secretly rooting for Altiwitz the whole time.”

Esther blinked. “Altiwitz? The hell is that?”

“It’s your couple name! That’s what you’ll tag all your pictures with. Like, Chris and I are Christombi, and he and Matthieu are Christhieu, and Matthieu and me are Matthieubi—”

“What do you do when it’s all three of you?”

“Christieubi,” she replied, as if it were obvious.

“Oh.” _Of course, why would I expect anything else._ “Right. Did Phichit come up with these?”

“He usually does. He’s gonna be so mad I beat him to it this time around. Serves him right for Milasara. I still think Crispicheva is better!”

“Milas…wait.” Esther craned her neck and found the two on the dance floor. “Them?”

“Uh…yeah. It’s pretty obvious.”

“I’ve been a bit distracted for the past few days!”

Ntombi adopted a conspiratorial smile. “Of course. If you’re not with him yet, I bet he’s all you think about.”

“Pretty much,” she admitted, too dizzy with the relief of telling _someone_ (even if it wasn’t him) to be too embarrassed.

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I’m thinking about doing it.” Her hands fiddled together. “In Barcelona.”

“You should! If he’s even half as crazy about you as everybody says, it’s a no-brainer.”

Esther chuckled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear; her go-to gesture when she was feeling self-conscious. “Hey…listen. The reason I asked you, about the sex thing…I wasn’t being weird, I promise. It’s just…I _know_ I’m crazy about him. I’ve never felt the way I do about him for anyone else. I mean, I _have_ , but it was never _real_ , the way it is now. I just…” she took a deep breath. “I’m really not sure about…the sex thing.” She couldn’t read the look Ntombi was giving her, so she started to ramble. “I mean, he’s _stupidly_ gorgeous. I could stare at him for hours. And sometimes I feel like…like I want to. With him. But…I don’t know.” She wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing at her biceps. “I don’t know. I don’t want to disappoint him like that, if he wants to, and I…don’t.”

“So…are you ace?” She had to remind herself of the purely questioning, nonjudgmental tone of Ntombi’s voice. The question still felt like it cut her open.

“I don’t know. I’ve…done it before. Had sex. I just…I don’t know.” There was more, but some things were simply too personal.

“Well…” Ntombi sidled closer, took Esther’s hand between her own. “That’s something that you two should talk about. It might not even matter to him.”

Esther couldn’t look at her. “I know. I just…I think it would hurt even more than a rejection. If he felt the same, but we couldn’t be together because of…that.”

She took a deep breath. Ntombi let her hand go. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m gonna go outside, I just need some air.” Esther left Ntombi by the table, skirted the dance floor and headed for the door.

The air outside the hotel was sharp, freezing, and just what she needed. She took a deep breath, sighed, and shut her eyes, perfectly willing to stand outside in snow-muted silence until she couldn’t bear it a second longer.

A few moments after her exit, the doors opened again. Esther opened her eyes, prepared to assure whoever it was that yes, she really did want to be alone, yes, she was fine, but her words died in her throat the moment she met the eyes of the other person, because she was staring at Yuuri Katsuki.

He was wearing his coat, dragging his luggage behind him—leaving, then. It was only then that she realized she hadn’t seen him at all at the banquet. Their eye contact lasted for only a split second: he was quick to look away, tug his mask over his face and hurry away in embarrassment.

For a moment, Esther stood, rooted to the spot. She regained her senses, took a single step forward, gasped, “ _Katsuki-san_.”

He froze like a deer in the headlights, turning slowly around, regarding her with wide eyes. _Who, me?_

 _Yes, you._ Esther followed him out onto the lot, arms folded against the cold. _Oh, fuck. What was I going to say? I never thought this far ahead. Come on, Esther, he’s looking at you—_

“I just wanted to tell you,” she blurted, remembering that she knew Japanese at the last moment, “How much you inspired me.” She suppressed a full-body shiver, _fuck, it’s cold._ “Watching you skate made me realize I wanted to come back.” He was still staring at her, but with the lower half of his face covered, he was hard to read. “I’m glad we both made it to the Final.”

For a horrifying moment, she thought that she’d made some horrible social faux pas, the way he was looking at her. Then, suddenly, she was being hugged, and it was all she could do to return it. _Holy shit._

“Thank you,” he said, stepping back. “What’s your name…?”

“Esther,” she said, too quickly. “Esther Markowitz. Maybe I’ll see you in Barcelona.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, in that polite, mild way particular to Japan. “My taxi is here; I have to go now. But thank you,” he said, again, “Esther.”

“Bye,” she waved, “Safe trip home.”

She stayed long enough to watch the cab drive off, but after that she had to run back inside, shivering with cold. Still, when she entered the lobby, she was smiling. _I did it._

Ntombi wasn’t in sight when she reentered the ballroom—in fact, the first people she ran into were Mila, Emil, and Sara, with her brother nowhere in sight. “Have you guys seen Ntombi?”

Sara shook her head. “She went up to her room a little while ago.”

“We thought you left too,” Mila said. “I haven’t said congratulations yet. You were fantastic today.”

“Thank you,” Esther replied, reflexively, unsure why it left her feeling so disoriented.

“When did you start raising your arms for jumps? Have you been practicing that?”

She rubbed at the back of her neck. “A little. I spent most of yesterday figuring out how to work it in.”

“Really? That’s amazing. It looked so natural.”

“Yeah!” Sara chipped in, “Your comeback has been amazing to watch. I can’t wait for Barcelona!”

 _They never hated me._ Esther blinked, quietly shaken by the force of the realization—thankfully, the two had started talking to each other, and were absorbed enough in that not to notice her zoning out. _It was all in my head._

_Then again, when isn’t it?_

I’m looking forward to it too,” she said, and for the first time, she meant it. “We should hang out while we’re there, if we get the chance.”

“We should! Here, let’s swap numbers.” Phones went around in a quick circle, contacts were put in, Emil swiped hers from Sara to add his in too.

“I’ve got to go find someone,” she said, once she had it back. “I’ll see you guys around?”

“You know it,” Mila told her, with an evil little smile. “Let’s give it our best.”

“Nothing but,” Esther agreed. She waved as she left them, and began looking around for Emanuel. Eventually, she spotted him, speaking to Josef Karpisek near one of the walls of the room. With a moment to summon her courage, she crossed the floor and strode up next to them. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Could I borrow my coach?”

Josef extended a brief, invitational hand. “Be my guest.” He reached into his pocket for a cleaning cloth, began to wipe at his glasses as Esther led Emanuel to the nearest, unoccupied corner. Halfway there, she changed her mind and led him out to the lobby.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, a hint of concern coloring the gruff tone he’d taken with her since the prior night.

“I want to apologize,” she blew right through him, but she’d had more than enough of people asking her, lately, if she was all right. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have changed the choreography without talking to you. I let it get to me, and I felt like I was alone, so I made the decision alone. And I’m sorry.”

For a long moment, Emanuel looked at her. Then, he sighed, put a hand to his temple. “No. I’m sorry, Esther. It was wrong of me to lose my temper with you like I did. I should be supporting you, when you’re in a bad spot, not making it worse.” He lowered his hand, ran the other through his hair. “I haven’t been the coach I should be. I’ve been holding back, and it hasn’t helped either of us.”

She folded her arms. “I’m not delicate, you know.”

“I know. I think you’re made of sterner stuff than anyone I’ve ever known.” _Oh._ Suddenly, the tile was very fascinating. “It isn’t that. I’ve…come to look at you as more than just my student, Esther. You understand, I was content to live my life alone. Then you came along, and…” Was he getting choked up? His voice sounded thick with unshed tears, and when she looked at him she found him turned to the side, mouth covered by his hand as he, for all intents and purposes, rubbed at his five o’clock shadow.

“…I didn’t realize how much I had wanted a family, not until you were here.”

Esther looked widely at him, all while he continued to stare off outside, through the glass lobby doors. The snow had begun to fall again, and it swirled in the wind like a dancer caught up in the music, like a skater on the ice.

_You’re off to a very good start. If you keep working like that, I believe you could be the best skater in the world someday._

Before she could second-guess herself any longer, Esther took a large step forward and half-crashed into him, wrapped her arms around him and held tight. He tensed, stood for what seemed like a short eternity. Then, he was hugging her back, so tightly that she felt a bit crushed.

It was perfect.

“Make me a promise,” she said, into the space between them, and if her voice wobbled, neither of them mentioned it. “On the ice, you’re my coach first.”

“Deal.”

“And when we’re off the ice…” she took a deep breath, but she wasn’t sure what she had been planning to say. _I want you to walk me to my chuppah one day._

In place of words, she just hugged him tighter, and if the responsive squeeze around her shoulders was anything to go by, he’d heard her.

“Oh _shit_ ,” she gasped, like she’d just had an ice-cold bucket of water thrown over her.

“What?” Emanuel let her go, alarmed.

“I just conducted an entire conversation with Yuuri Katsuki in the familiar tense. I went out there and talked to my role model like he was my best friend.” She took a few steps away, covered her face with her hands, and felt a faint whimper escaping. “I can’t ever come back to this country again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sofia's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty7vRvLzycA)   
>  [sofia's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dridksAWI0)   
>  [aileen's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IBlQj2U5kU)   
>  [aileen's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUClIslXKZo)   
>  [mila's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvnUYsZm8Lc)   
>  [mila's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsIMwdScmGM)   
>  [ntombi's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0jUcR25bcU)   
>  [ntombi's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG55MPQjhwo)   
>  [sara's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpq47QjJHOw)   
>  [sara's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CjbxW0ljtE)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [esther's dress](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0a/06/5d/0a065dbf55e9314dfe6025bf37b144c2--high-slit-dress-ball-dresses.jpg)


	10. Passacaille in Barcelona

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art: [Esther drawn in the YoI style](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/post/166154557444/i-wanted-to-see-what-esther-might-look-like-in-the)  
> fic: [and the waitress is practicing politics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12284877), a deleted scene from chapter 9, from the point of view of Aileen.

When they returned home, Suie approached the door at a leisurely trot, better acquainted now with their comings and goings. He meowed once as he wound about Esther’s ankles, looked up expectantly until she bent to pick him up. “Hello, _Suie-lutin_. I’m back again.”

Emanuel strolled across the floor to appraise the wall, where her Worlds bronze currently held court. “What do you think? On either side, perhaps? Or underneath.”

“No,” she said, quickly, stroking Suie’s ears as she joined him. “I don’t want to hang them up yet. Not until after Barcelona.”

Emanuel gave her a curious, sidelong look. “What is this? Superstition?”

She tilted her head, looked at the glimmering bronze in its frame. “Just a feeling.”

He gave it up far too easily to have entirely dismissed his curiosity: one day, he would ask her again. “Well, we have a few weeks until then. We’re going to make sure you’re at the top of your game when the time comes.”

Esther set Suie down. “About that…I have something that I want to do.” He listened to her, and although there were moments where his brows furrowed and he looked uncertain, by the end, he gave her a single, slow nod.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised her.

And so they went, day in and day out. Autumn was gone nearly as soon as it had come, and winter came in on its heels. Esther woke up and entered the rink or the gym in darkness, and she didn’t emerge until the sun had set. Her life persisted in perpetual twilight, and all the while, Emanuel was a half-step behind her, telling her _again, faster, I know you can land that._

December approached, and she had never felt more in tune. Her programs were second nature; embedded somewhere beneath the skin, seeping into her bones, beating through her veins. “You’re ready,” Emanuel told her, pressing his hands together, his voice hushed with barely-contained anticipation. He looked thoughtful, tapping his lower lip with a forefinger. “I’ve been thinking about your competition mindset. I think it might be good for you if we held an exhibition.”

“Now?” she frowned, as she rubbed the towel over her brow. “The Final is a week away.”

“I know it’s short notice, but it doesn’t have to be a large event. I’ve spoken with the Union; they’re prepared to promote it as a free event, which the city is in favor of. We would hold it on Sunday. That gives you plenty of time to rest, and make your last tweaks before we leave on Wednesday.”

Esther adjusted her gloves, trapped her hands between her arms and her sides. “Okay.”

“I wanted to ask you. Is it something you want to do?”

She thought for a moment, recalled the roar of the crowd in Chicago when Leo had taken the ice.

“Yes.”

Emanuel had been maintaining careful neutrality, but the moment she voiced her approval, he broke into a smile. “Excellent. I’ll have them launch the promos.” He pulled out his phone and started punching in numbers. “You should invite your congregation,” he told her, before he stepped away to conduct his conversation.

They had been watching her throughout the season—the service after competitions was always full of congratulations for her accomplishment, the ones before were marked by wishes for good luck. It wasn’t difficult to tell that they were all exceedingly proud, but Esther hardly minded. They could all use something to be proud of. And so, she informed them all of the open performance; several promised to be there, and some of them even followed through. She spotted a few filtering into the stands before the program was set to begin: most of them were families with young children, who insisted on taking the seats nearest to the edge of the ice.

“Now, you know this is just a performance,” Emanuel told her, as he put the finishing touches on her makeup—a hybrid of her short program and her free skate, as there’d barely be time to change costumes between—“But I still want you to bring your best. This is your home country, and they want to know that you’ll do them proud.” He finished, and tucked a loose strand of hair back into her updo. “Are you going to…?”

She shook her head. “I’m saving that for Barcelona.”

He smiled. “All right. Your public awaits.”

Esther turned from the wall, skated out with open arms, and felt nothing but love. She couldn’t remember how her programs went, but they must have been good—there was no pressure this time, just the cheers of her countrymen, the memories that she would take with her all the way to Barcelona.

By the time she finished her free skate, she was thoroughly winded, but oddly energized. She came to the edge, where she recognized the Baums’ children waving to her. “Oh, thank you.” Charlotte gave her a bouquet and a gap-toothed smile.

“I want to skate just like you,” she said, wide-eyed, breathless. Esther knew the look, because it had been hers, once.

It was, to say so in fewer words, perfect.

The flight to Barcelona being grounded on account of an approaching snowstorm was less perfect.

“Beka, listen,” she stalled for time, tried to think of what to say as she paced before the huge glass windows. Just outside, the plane sat beneath stormy grey skies, taunting her. Esther looked at it, sighed and glanced in Emanuel’s direction. He offered a sympathetic smile, before he looked down at his own phone. “Don’t worry, I’ll get there eventually. Worst case scenario, they’ll have to plow the runways, and I’ll get there tomorrow.”

“ _I know. It’s disappointing, is all. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you_.”

Heart clenching, she reached up and tugged at her necklace. “Me too.” A deep, steeling breath—she smiled, like she was looking at him now, as if she’d ever stand a chance of fooling him. “Go out. Enjoy the city. You know I’ll let you know as soon as I’m in Barcelona.”

“ _Okay_.” A soft sigh.

“Bye, Beka.”

“ _Bye_.”

She hung up and dropped unceremoniously into her seat beside Emanuel. “Mother _fucker_.”

“ _Comme tu dis,_ ” Emanuel replied. “If something has to go wrong, I would prefer that it be this.” He had gone back to trying to read his book, thumbing loosely at the next page in the anticipation of turning it, though he had been scanning the same passage of _The Aeneid_ for the past fifteen minutes. “You know, it’s like they say in the theatre. A bad dress rehearsal.”

Esther blinked. “Well, if that’s the metaphor we’re running with, then I had a _good_ dress rehearsal.”

His head rose. “The exhibition,” he murmured. “You’re right.”

Slouching into her seat, she let out a wearied groan. Emanuel looked at her, thoughtful—then, decisively, he snapped his book shut and stood up. “Well, I know they do say the show must go on.”

Esther frowned at him. “What are you proposing we do?”

“The trains will still be running. We’ll get the first one we can and head to Barcelona that way.”

“Our bags are already checked,” she pointed out, standing to gather her things nonetheless.

“If I cannot move heaven,” said Emanuel, grimly making his way to the concierge, “Then I will raise hell.”

He proceeded to be a nuisance at the help desk, one which had her hiding behind her hands, weakly reminding him every now and again that they had a reputation. It did get them their checked bags back relatively quickly, though, and they got back in the car to head straight for the train station. By then, the sun had long gone down. The station attendant was sympathetic, but ultimately businesslike, as he explained to them that the next train left at six o’clock sharp the following morning. Emanuel sighed, but still thanked the man and bought two tickets in business class. “The damned flight still hasn’t left,” he muttered, as they returned to the car; perhaps he was consoling himself as best he could.

“I probably wasn’t going to make the public practice anyway,” Esther said, as she settled into the passenger’s seat. Emanuel took them home, where they slept little and fitfully until it was time to return to the station.

Emanuel chuckled incredulously at the lack of snow on the ground. It didn’t start until after they’d pulled out of the station and crossed into France. They would’ve been long gone before it ever chanced hitting them.

They changed in Paris, and from there, continued south. Esther took snapchats of the passing scenery, cycling through the location filters as they came. At last, when it was nearing five in the afternoon, they came rolling to a stop in Barcelona Sants, and they exited to the platform with all the grace of newborn deer.

“I’ll call a cab,” said Emanuel, already dialing. Esther was captivated by the sunset, streaming in through the windows in a dazzling vermilion orange. _Like citrine._ Her heart beat faster, and she fumbled for her own phone.

“Hey,” she said, quick and slightly breathless as she loped alongside Emanuel’s long strides, suitcase trailing behind her. “I just made it.”

“ _Do you want me to come get you?_ ”

“I still have to check in to the hotel.” Emanuel gave her a look, mouthed _who is it?_ She mouthed back _Otabek;_ his mouth set in a faint line, she rolled her eyes. There was a faint commotion on the other line, voices asking, in English, who it was—he’d answered her in Russian, as was their habit. “ _It’s Esther_ ,” he answered, faintly, further from the receiver. There was a faint clamoring from the other voices, and one distinctly familiar call of “ _HI, ESTHER!_ ” that just barely registered.

_Chuenchai is there. Which means Phichit is probably also there. Which lends the distinct possibility that—_

“ _Sorry, I’m with some of the others right now. They’d all like to see you, though._ ”

Esther giggled. Emanuel gave her an affronted look, before he turned to greet their driver. “Okay. Text me the address and I’ll head there as soon as I drop my things off.”

“ _All right. See you soon_.”

“Finally.” Smiling, she gave her suitcase over to be stuffed into the trunk.

“ _Yeah_.” His voice warmed her. She hung up, and slipped her phone into her jacket’s front pocket to climb into the car. Her seatbelt wasn’t yet buckled before it buzzed with the address.

“The Altin boy, hm?” Emanuel said, as they peeled off the terminal road and headed for the main drag.

“He has a name, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure. I have a feeling that it’s not _Beka_ , though that’s all I ever hear from you.”

Esther felt her cheeks burning. _Don’t look out the window, that’ll give it away for sure._

“I only ever see him scowling,” he sighed. “Is that what appeals to you? Bad boys?”

Esther spluttered. “What? Otabek is not a _bad boy_.”

“I only know what I’ve heard…” Emanuel held up his hands. Esther rolled her eyes at him.

“I’ve known him for a while now.” _Three years longer than you, at least._ “I think I can make that call.” She settled back into the seat, folded her arms and looked out the window. Emanuel let it go, but in the silence that ensued, she got to thinking. It was always the beginning of the end, when she did that.

For his part, Emanuel spared only a half-amused, half-despairing glance for her as she darted back out of her room, having gone in long enough to drop her bags and change. “Don’t stay out too late.”

“I won’t,” she called over her shoulder, already on her way to the elevator. Outside, she managed to get a cab to the appropriate address: Spanish was far from her best language, but her Italian was good enough to carry her through. The ride was short—if she had been in less of a hurry, she would’ve happily walked it. As it was, she crossed the plaza and picked out her table long before she was close enough to make out faces; they were easily the most boisterous gathering in the near vicinity. And besides, as she got closer, there was a figure dressed in black rising from his seat, crossing around the table and striding out to meet her. In spite of herself, she broke into a jog, met him just beyond the pavilion that stretched over the outdoor seats.

They crashed into each other, a wave breaking on the sand: he opened his arms to her, didn’t budge as she moved wholeheartedly into them. She tucked her head into his shoulder, cheek pressing into leather as her nose rubbed against the soft knit of his scarf. “Hey, Beka.”

She wasn’t sure if the reluctance she felt in letting him go was her own projection. “Hey yourself,” he said, stepping back.

The others were less content to let the moment endure. “Hi, Esther!” Chuenchai half-stood from her chair to wave—she was seated at the nearest edge of the side with their backs to the restaurant. Phichit leaned around her to echo the greeting, and seated on the corner just beyond him was one Christophe Giacometti, fixing her with a curious eye.

On the far side of the table, Otabek’s empty chair sat next to one occupied by Yuri Plisetsky, who glared at her in what was, at best, suspicion. By her bearing, the right side of the table held two Japanese women, both of them staring a little widely—and, nearest to her, on the fourth side of the table, there sat Yuuri Katsuki alongside his coach, the five-time World Champion Viktor Nikiforov, both of them looking perfectly casual and not at all like demigods.

With a reassuring hand on the small of her back, Otabek guided her forward. He tried to offer her his seat first, but a glance at Yuri Plisetsky’s deepening scowl had her insisting she take the chair that he pulled up. He slid back into the middle, and no sooner had she sat down that everyone was turning expectantly her way.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Christophe offered her his hand. “Ntombi talked about you, though.”

“Oh, did she now?” Esther replied, faintly. _If there’s an impression I’d love to take back, it’d be the one I gave in Moscow…_ “Hey Chai, hey Phichit.” _Fuck, I’m running out of people I know._ “Um…” Unwillingly, her eyes found Yuuri, but he was, oddly enough, looking at her too.

“I met Esther at the Rostelecom Cup,” he said, in Japanese, to the two women on the other side of the table. He turned to her, said, in English, “This is my sister Mari and my ballet teacher Minako.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Esther told them, making very sure to stick to the formal tense. Nonetheless, she still found herself with the overwhelming urge to hide under the table.

Viktor had perked up noticeably when Yuuri began speaking. “It’s always nice to meet a friend of my Yuuri’s,” he said, smiling pleasantly across the table at her.

_I had fantasies about marrying you when I was twelve. Instead of our first dance, we did a pairs skate to Just The Way You Are._

“Nice to meet you too,” she managed, somehow. A hand settled onto her knee and squeezed lightly; she looked out the corner of her eye to see Otabek suppressing an amused smile.

_Little shit._ Esther narrowed her eyes at him, though he just took the opportunity to lean back and look at his other companion. “Esther, this is Yuri Plisetsky.” He was, at the moment, busy scowling with whatever was on his phone.

“Hi,” said Esther.

“Hey,” he replied, flatly, not looking at her. She could’ve gotten bent out of shape about it, but the boy was fifteen years old, barely taller than her, and maybe a hundred fifteen soaking wet—she shrugged and faced forward again. This had the side effect of bringing Viktor and Yuuri back into her field of vision, which was still…disconcerting. She flicked her eyes down to the table and studied their hands, which were…sporting matching rings. _Wait. Is that—_

Otabek, ever in tune with her, shot her a questioning look. She cleared her throat and said the first thing that came to mind: “Wow, it’s almost the entire men’s singles bracket!” _Nice, Esther, way to look like an airhead._

Otabek wore a similar look of confusion, but the others seemed content to take it at face value. “I know!” said Phichit. “It kind of fell together this way, but I’m not complaining.”

Chuenchai poked him in the side. “Phichit! We should get a picture!”

“You’re right.” His phone was out in an instant, aimed at the rest of the table. “Everybody say Barcelona!”

Once the photo had been snapped, Christophe leaned over to speak to Esther, close enough that she could pick out every one of his long eyelashes. “Ntombi is here too. She’s with Matthieu right now, but I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

Esther fiddled her hands over the table. “I’d like that too.” It would be good to get a chance to apologize for everything in Moscow—she couldn’t remember all of it, but all that meant was, she stood a decent chance of having something to apologize for.

“She feels bad about leaving without a goodbye. She struggles sometimes with social situations. You understand, don’t you?”

Slowly, she nodded. “Probably better than most people.”

Christophe didn’t bat an eye at that, just flashed her a dazzling smile. “Good.”

“Thanks, Christophe,” she said, quietly.

“Please,” he reached for a hand, dropping a soft kiss onto the back of it, “Call me Chris.” His eyes flickered, amused, over her shoulder. Esther sat back in her chair and looked at Otabek, whose typical neutrality had faded into a slight scowl. When she turned, he schooled himself, though not quickly enough for her not to notice. Under the table, she slid her hand over his, and he relaxed.

Dinner arrived soon after that, and the conversation dipped a bit until the plates were cleared—they were, most of them, after all, athletes, and food was a serious business.

Esther had remained silent through most of it, half-exhausted from the long train ride and the general ordeal, but also, gathering strength from a place deep within her, aided by the warmth of Otabek’s hand on her knee.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said, in her most formal Japanese, before she could change her mind—she made herself look directly at him while she spoke. “For Moscow. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was a stupid mistake to make. I meant no disrespect. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Yuuri looked at her, startled, but the look faded into a small smile. “You have a Tokyo accent,” he told her, amused.

Stunned, Esther felt herself chuckling weakly.

“What’s going on? What are you two talking about?” Viktor pouted, nearly hooking his chin over Yuuri’s shoulder, just as Chuenchai started complaining, “Come on, let’s keep it to languages we all understand.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yuuri assured them. He looked at Esther, still wearing that small smile. “I really needed a friend.”

Some of the others were still making vaguely confused noises, but Esther found herself biting her lip to prevent the huge, beaming smile threatening to escape her. Otabek leaned next to her ear. “What were you talking about?”

“I’ll tell you later,” she whispered. Yuuri was opening up, talking about how he wasn’t used to hanging out with the others—at last year’s banquet, he couldn’t even talk to Viktor.

The climate at the table changed almost immediately—Viktor nearly spit out his beer and had to set his glass down, Chris cast a raised eyebrow to the end of the table, and Yuri lowered his phone in disbelief. The others, Esther included, cast their eyes around for any sort of explanation.

“You don’t remember?” Viktor sounded shocked, betrayed, relieved, like he’d just solved the problem of Archimedes’ golden crown, all at once—and it went downhill from there. Esther watched Yuuri hear of his own exploits at the GPF banquet the year prior, and nearly felt the mortification as her own. Then, Chris, who had apparently been waiting for _just_ the right moment, pointed out their matching rings, prompting Phichit to congratulate them on their marriage, which led Viktor to clarify that they were _engagement_ rings, and that they were getting married just as soon as Yuuri won gold.

At the mention of the competition, the air thickened with tension. _A gold medal, huh?_ Esther scooted back in her chair, surveyed the men and wondered who would swipe first.

The moment was broken by the arrival of one Jean-Jacques Leroy, his fiancée held snugly at his side. “I’ll be the one to win gold and get married!” he announced.

At that point, it was easy to see that the night was over. There would be plenty of time to be friends later—now, the hour was getting late, and the next day would bring with it the first stage of competition. They dispersed, said their goodbyes and filtered out.

A few paces from the pavilion, Esther let a small, incredulous laugh escape her. “You know, they tell you that you should never meet your heroes.”

Otabek looked down at her. “Is it true?”

“Yeah. Now I _know_ I’ll never be as cool as Yuuri Katsuki.”

Otabek shook with one of his rare chuckles, slid his arm around her and brought her towards the edge of the plaza. “How was the train ride?”

“Long,” she sighed. “Boring. I don’t know how people sit and read for hours on end.”

“Hm.”

“But I’m here now,” she said, swaying closer, bumping her hip against his. She looked up, and he was smiling. _Tell him,_ she told herself. “So, what’d you do today?” she asked, instead.

“I went to the Park Güell. I took Yuri with me.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. We hadn’t seen each other since that training camp, but I’d never really forgotten about him. It was nice to reconnect.” He looked down at her. “I’d never have done it if it wasn’t for you.”

“Really?”

“I figured, if you were brave enough to talk to me…I could talk to him.” He stopped by the curb, and Esther turned to see a large black bike parked on the street.

“Wow,” she stepped out of his grasp, moved in for a closer look. “You always talked about this, but now you’ve actually done it.”

He stepped in closer, retrieved two helmets that he’d stashed somewhere. “Can I take you back?”

Esther cast an uncertain glance at the bike, sitting quietly still as it was. “I don’t know. I’ve never ridden on one of these before.” She turned back to him, knew that he would never force anything on her. “I trust you.” So she clambered on behind him, buckled on the helmet and wrapped tentative arms around the broadness of his chest. “Just…go slow?”

“Hold on tight,” he told her. It was a good thing she was already sitting down; his tone might’ve been liable, otherwise, to making her knees give out. She yelped when the engine revved and squeezed hard as he guided them out and onto the road.

She couldn’t look, at first, as they picked up speed. Slowly, though, she acclimated, opened her eyes and lifted her head to take in the city lights around them. Her head turned, neck craning in a vain attempt to see everything, until she got sore, and leaned forward to rest against him. The winds that whipped around them were cold, but he was so, so warm.

They arrived at the hotel, after what felt like eternity in a moment. As they entered the lobby, he told her, “I’d like to spend tomorrow with you.”

Her heart glowed, she smiled at the floor. “As long as there’s time. I need to make up for missing the practice this morning.” They entered the elevator.

“Whatever you’ll give to me.”

Esther’s heart thudded against her ribs as they walked towards her room. Adrenaline would’ve had her quickening her steps, but she forced them slower, hoped that he might reach out and touch her again; wrap an arm around her shoulders her waist, take her hand, even. They came to her door, and she could barely breathe with how much she wanted him to kiss her.

She hovered with her back to the door, swallowed with some difficulty. Her tongue swept out over lips that were suddenly dry. He was standing so close; all he had to do was take half a step forward, crowd her against the doorframe and slide a hand into her hair.

He did none of those things: instead, he turned to study the pattern on the carpet. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Esther blinked, admired the wallpaper, and tried not to let her heart sink. “Yeah.” She reached into her pocket, pulled her room key and let herself in.

“Goodnight,” he said, to her retreating back.

“Night,” she replied, reluctantly closing the door behind him. Turning, she paced away, dropped face-first onto the bed and heaved a huge sigh.

 

“You’re distracted,” Emanuel told her, on the ice the following morning. Wincing, Esther skated around to face his folded arms.

“I am,” she admitted. “A little bit.”

“Well, whatever it is, you’ll put it out of your mind for now, and I’m sure you’ll take all necessary steps to resolve it before you’re on the ice tomorrow night.” When she didn’t reply right away, he raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, Coach.”

“All right. Run it again. Your landing was rough.”

After they were done, he sat beside her as she unlaced her skates. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, fine.” She tugged one off and checked her tape. “Just…boy troubles. Nothing you want to hear about, I’d wager.”

Emanuel’s brows knitted; his mouth pressed tight. “No. And yes. I imagine it has aught to do with the Altin boy? He didn’t do anything untoward, did he?”

“ _No_ ,” Esther tugged on the other skate. “It’s not even him, it’s just me, being…insecure, and uncertain, and apprehensive…” she sighed. “You don’t want to hear about my teen angst bullshit.”

For a long moment, he was silent, thoughtful. “Well,” he spoke, finally, “It sounds like something you should talk to him about. Be open, and honest.”

“Are you seriously giving me romantic advice right now?”

He issued a weary sigh, as though he couldn’t quite believe it himself, but gave her a fond smile, at the end of it all. “It’s never failed me.” He wrapped his hand about the back of her skull, near-cradling it as he leaned forward to kiss the top of head. He left her there, after, to ponder.

 

* * *

 

Otabek met her in the lobby. “Hungry?” he asked.

“Famished!” she climbed up on the bike, wrapped her arms around him and let her cheek rest on his shoulder as he took them into the city. They found a crepe stand that smelled, attractively, of sautéing vegetables, and sat down on a bench not far from the curb.

“What did you want to do?” she asked, cleaning up as best she could with the wax paper. She turned, expectantly; found herself distracted by the sight of him licking his fingers clean. He raised his eyebrows at her, she blinked. “Uh, while we’re here. In Barcelona.”

He thought, for a moment. “Nothing, really. Whatever you want to do.”

Esther looked down at the pavement. “I didn’t really think of anything,” she admitted, “Besides seeing you.”

Another of their breathless silences passed them by; a new kind, for them, one that she was rapidly beginning to recognize for what it was. The thought crossed her mind—not for the first time and not for the last— _tell him._

“Otabek?”

“Yeah?”

Fear, desperate fear pressed down on her from all sides. “How well do I know you?” The blinding edge of panic receded, if only slightly. She turned to him, searching for his answer, but he just looked confused.

“What do you mean?”

Suddenly uncomfortable, she looked away, wrapping her hands around her elbows. “I don’t know. Just…something I’ve been thinking about, I guess. There’s just…so much to you, you know? So many aspects of you, and I just wonder if the you I know is…if it’s right.” She buried her face in her hands. _You had to make it weird, you’re not making any sense—_

He kept her waiting for a long time. “What do you think of? When you think of me.”

She chanced looking at him. He sounded…curious, tentatively so, and when she searched for his eyes, he was unusually unwilling to meet her gaze. It reminded her of the boy he’d once been, a lifetime ago in Boston.

“I think of how we used to sneak out,” she said, wondering if he knew that he was one of the only things that made her childhood worth remembering. “I think of the autumn, that kind of chill in the air, but it feels warm. I think of music, but I think about quiet, too.” _God knows it only goes really quiet when you’re around._ “Strength. Your books, your plants. The way you talk about your family. How you always manage to surprise me, just when I think you can’t anymore.”

His eyes were on her now, she could feel it; it was her turn to be afraid of looking.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “There are so many facets to you, sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never be able to know them all.”

His hand closed around hers; warm, so warm. “You do know me,” he told her, quiet and fierce, in that deeply contextualized way that sounded, on the surface, like his ever-even tone. “You know me better than anyone else.”

For a moment, she considered asking him the same question. _What am I to you?_ In the end, she relented—he hadn’t asked, after all, if he really knew _her_ , and, not for the first time, certainly not the last, she envied his certainty.

“Thank you,” she breathed, instead, looking gratefully at him, her heart fluttering to see the small smile showing at the corners of his lips. He was breathtakingly beautiful, like a ray of sun breaking through the winter sky. All it would’ve taken was one of them leaning in, but they didn’t; turned away, instead, directed flushing cheeks away under the pretense of searching for something to pass the time.

The afternoon was perfect. Even when she felt tense enough to snap, every moment spent with Otabek was an immaculate instant in time. Still, by the time they returned to the hotel, Esther couldn’t help but be disappointed. He bid her farewell with a light touch at her wrist, and left to prepare for his short program. She, herself, didn’t have much time until she was due to meet Chuenchai.

“Esther!” She was greeted with a crushing hug when she joined her in the lobby, at the agreed-upon meeting time. She was armed with her customary armful of flags, one of which she extracted and handed to Esther with a wink. _Thank God I don’t blush easily,_ she thought, looking down at the turquoise-and-gold of Kazakhstan. “Are you ready?”

In spite of herself, she held the flag closer and nodded. “Let’s go.”

The arena was within walking distance of the hotel—the seats were starting to fill up when they arrived, but Chuenchai pulled at her sleeve as they entered the rink. “Yuuri’s going on first. I’m gonna go wish him luck.”

“Uh, okay.” Esther reclaimed her sleeve. “You go ahead. I’m gonna go sit down.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I…wouldn’t want to interrupt his headspace, or anything.”

“Okay. Phichit is after Yuuri, so I won’t be up until he’s done.”

“I’ll save you a seat,” Esther promised, heading up to find a space. She sat down and situated herself, put her flag down on the place next to her, and left her hands in her lap with a small, deep breath, in deference to the racing of her heart. _I’m not even skating tonight._

“Hi, Esther!” Ntombi had appeared at the end of the row, waving from the aisle. Shadowing her was Aileen, looking slightly less thrilled. Ntombi slid, nonetheless, into the seat beside her, leaning over for a hug. “I’m glad I got to see you. I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye in Moscow. I feel terrible.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Esther waved her off, perhaps too quickly. “I get it. I wasn’t really feeling that great while I was there. I’m sorry for that.” _I hope I’m making even an ounce of sense right now._

Ntombi seemed happy, though, and Aileen was giving her a curious, narrow-eyed look. Ntombi leaned around her, observed her flag with a conspiratorial wink. “Here to cheer everybody on?”

Esther shifted in her seat, hopefully hiding it better from view. “Yep. I’m just waiting for a friend.”

“Well, I won’t hold you up. I’ve got to find Matthieu again. I’ll see you tomorrow! Good luck, if I don’t get to say it before then.” She hugged her again and hurried back down the stairs, leaving Aileen to linger by the aisle.

“Emil and the Crispinos are here,” she said, eventually, hands stuffed in her jacket pockets. “Mila, too. We’re over there, if you wanted to come along.”

Esther sized up her posture; strangely closed-off. “Thanks. I’m good.”

Aileen looked somewhat relieved, as she shrugged and moved off to rejoin her friends.

Esther faced the ice: the announcer had come on to announce the beginning of the event. Bracing her hands on her thighs, she leaned forward, picked restlessly at the fabric of her pants.

_Representing Japan, Katsuki Yuuri._

He kissed Viktor’s ring before he broke away from the wall, and Viktor did the same. Her heart panged only once, before she couldn’t think of it anymore. Watching him take the ice stole her breath from her. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before; on the footage from the exhibition and the Cup of China, in person at Rostelecom, but there was something otherworldly about him tonight, something that made the hair on her arms stand up when the music began. The light caught his ring and flashed off the shining gold surface. _He’s engaged,_ she thought, dizzily, and wondered if it was any easier for the people in question to comprehend. What would that bring to bear in his skating? What would he show them tonight?

He was pure form, sleek as oil and sharp as a knife, drawing gasps and chills from her as he moved. It wasn’t fair, really, that everyone would have to follow this.

As he neared the entrance to his last jump, she tensed—this was different, it wasn’t his quad toe loop, it was a _flip_ —he nearly had it, but as he came down, he shot a hand out to the ice to stay upright. Everything else had been perfect. Still, as the routine came to a stop, he was tight with disappointment, sank slowly to the ice and put his head down.

He still scored at 110, though he looked bitterly disappointed for it, too fixated on his one shortcoming to notice how the stadium roared, how Viktor smiled at him, how her very soul trembled with empathy.

She didn’t realize that she was close to tears until the camera changed to show Phichit, exchanging a last few words with Celestino and his other coach as Chuenchai hung around at the wall. He drifted over, and she launched herself over to hug him around the neck. _Representing Thailand, Phichit Chulanont_ sounded, and she let him go to take center stage, beaming.

Within moments, he had spread the look to every corner of the arena. Esther found herself tapping her foot, grinning uncontrollably as her heart went in time with the music. _Yes!_ He had the entire audience wrapped around his little finger, he looked like he was about to leave them all behind for someplace higher, and when he finished, he was overcome with tears of joy. Chuenchai held onto him in the kiss and cry as he regained himself. His score came, a new personal best, which merited a selfie.

Esther had to wipe her eyes as Yuri Plisetsky was going on. _Fuck, we’re only two performances in._ Chuenchai slid in next to her and immediately hugged her, squealing with joy.

“That was amazing!” Esther said, once she could breathe again.

“It was _perfect_ ,” Chai squeaked, handing over the Kazakhstani flag and searching in her remaining bundle for the Russian one. “Here!”

Esther turned to the ice, curious. She hadn’t seen him since the Skate Canada broadcast, but word said he’d been working his routines, and the headlines informed he was fresh off first place at the Golden Spin. He looked nearly aloof as he skated to the center, like he didn’t notice anything going on around him.

He’d definitely improved, that much was clear. “I can’t believe he’s only fifteen,” whispered Chai, next to her.

Esther’s reply was stolen in a gasp, though, because Yuri Plisetsky had taken to landing his jumps with arms above his head. She scooted slowly forward, unable to believe her eyes as he did it again, and again. _Holy shit._ His last quad was completed with both arms raised, and the stadium was silent in shock, for a split second after the music concluded, before it erupted with applause. He didn’t look like he heard it, too busy sinking to the ice, gasping. He had to take a moment before he joined his coaches in the kiss and cry.

“That’s going to be a record,” Esther murmured; sidelong, because neither of them were willing to take their eyes off the monitors.

_The short program score for Yuri Plisetsky is 115.31. He is currently in first place._

“ _I knew it!_ ” He’d broken Viktor’s old record by nearly three points—the cameras cut to the previous holder, undoubtedly searching for his reaction, but he was beaming, clapping and cupping his hands around his mouth to call to him.

_Maybe he really is out, then._ Viktor Nikiforov’s look was not that of a man who was plotting to take his title back.

“Wow,” Chai wheezed, sinking into her seat as the ice was cleared for the break. “And that was just the first group.”

“You said it.” She tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear, glanced at the door and spotted a familiar figure entering the arena. Her brows furrowed. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

She hurried to the entrance, careful not to lose sight of him. “Coach? I didn’t know you were coming.”

Emanuel’s eyes darted all around the rink, like he was looking for someone. “I decided that I would,” he said, eventually. “Don’t worry; run along back to your friends. I won’t keep you.” He headed in the opposite direction, and Esther watched him go for a moment before returning, puzzled.

“What did he want?” Chai asked.

Esther shook her head as she regained her seat. “I don’t know. Nothing, really. He didn’t tell me he was coming here tonight.”

Chuenchai might’ve said more, but Chris was about to go on. The screen displayed Matthieu and Ntombi by the rinkside, watching as Chris leaned over the wall to hug Joseph before taking the center.

His routine, which had only improved since the Cup of China, had received another boost in the weeks since the Trophée de France. Still, following the three in the first group, it was abundantly clear that he wasn’t as young as he had once been. _He’s not going to score higher than any of those three, and that still leaves—_

_Oh shit._ Esther went straight to her feet with a jolt. “I’ll be back!” she called, not waiting for Chuenchai’s reply as she flew down the stairs to the edge of the rink, where she found Otabek out of view of the cameras, speaking to Lee, nodding seriously and checking his laces one last time. He straightened when he spotted her, and his eyes on her gave her the courage to approach.

“Good luck.” Over the pounding of her heart, she could barely hear.

The corner of his mouth twitched, the briefest chink in the severe look on his face. “Thanks.”

She thought a lot of things all at once: _you’re always so tense_ was one of them, and _Emanuel is going to complain about this later_ was another, but the loudest of all, by far, was _when did I turn into a person who waits for things?_

She wet her dry lips, took a step forward before she could talk herself out of it—it was brief, the barest press of her mouth to his, but it may as well have set the world ablaze. He stared at her as she stepped back, eyes wide, lips still parted. She gave him her best smile, and if it was as crooked and quivery as she felt, it must’ve looked like a disaster. The announcer came on, _Representing Kazakhstan, Otabek Altin,_ and he whipped around, dispensed efficiently of his guards and took the ice, wheeling around to face Lee for a final few words.

Ntombi shot her a gleeful smile as she passed by, hanging onto Chris’ arm as his party exited the kiss and cry. Esther returned a shaky, nervous one, and turned back to Otabek.

_God, I hope I didn’t just fuck up his performance. Or our relationship._

Up on the screen, he looked as serious as ever. Somewhere behind them, there was a loud “ _Davai!_ ” Esther turned to see Yuri Plisetsky up above them in the stands, turned back just in time to see Otabek giving a thumbs-up in return. Biting down on a small smile, she watched Otabek skate out to the middle of the ice, took a deep breath against the wriggling of her insides.

A soft, unbidden gasp escaped her as he began. There was a kind of energy there that she hadn’t seen before, something less controlled, more open: it was a passion that demanded to be felt, running over until it spilled into his performance, carried his message clear to all of them. Esther pressed a hand to her quickening heart, cheeks stinging as she smiled. They had never needed words—here was her answer, written out on the ice, clear as it could be.

She barely refrained from meeting him in the kiss and cry, lingered just beyond the cameras with her thumbnail held anxiously between her teeth for the scores.

_The short program score for Otabek Altin is 112.38. He is currently in second place._

“ _Yes!_ ” Esther couldn’t help herself, hopping in place, clapping until her hands stung. He’d far surpassed his personal best. Even Otabek, normally so stoic before the cameras, spared a victorious fist-pump. He acknowledged his public as he stood to exit, but once he left, he looked straight at her.

“Hey,” she murmured, tilting her head up to hold his eyes as he stopped in front of her, took her hand and held it tight. They smiled, hearts beating loud and strong, heedless of the ballad starting up back on the ice.

She didn’t look away, not until she heard the ringing gasp of the crowd. She turned, seeking the source of the sound; her lips parted as a planned combination became a single. From this far away, she could see the whites of Jean-Jacques Leroy’s eyes.

“Esther?” Otabek touched her shoulder, concerned, but she couldn’t turn away, because, though it was Jean-Jacques Leroy crumbling under the pressure, she was watching herself disintegrate all over again.


	11. That's Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the brief hiatus. School got a little invasive, I started working more during the week, and I got a cold just to top it all off. I'm back now, and I hope to have this done before the real Grand Prix closes out this year!

He managed to finish, somehow. For all his mega-jumps, it was the most impressive thing Esther had ever seen him do; skating to a finish and putting on a brave face in the kiss and cry. With her head still full of her own disaster, all she could feel was the numbing cold of the ice under her knees, the panicked, gasping breaths she’d sobbed out as she was led from the arena. Jean-Jacques Leroy had been hit with the same senseless fear, but in the face of his lowest score in competition, the sudden, dramatic death of his chance at the podium, he had prevailed over it.

Otabek, of course, knew exactly what was on her mind as they were leaving the stadium—she could tell by the way he left a bit of space between them, stayed quiet and left her alone with her thoughts. She watched him conduct his interviews, unfailingly polite as always, and couldn’t help but feel like she’d won a gold medal already.

“All right, I’m heading back.” Lee passed by, turned to observe them with no shortage of amusement. “Don’t stay out too late.” Otabek grumbled that he wouldn’t, quickly made his way down the curb, and Esther followed.

The thought of him was stronger than the ghosts of the past. She needed him to know that, how untouchable she felt, just from knowing that her feelings were returned. He’d lent her a small fraction of his certitude, and though she doubted it would last, it was enough to make her feel like she was on top of the world.

So she stopped him, with a light grip on his wrist, once she caught up to him. “Hey,” she said, smiling at what had become their little in-joke. She let her hand slide down to his, twining their fingers. _I’m with you now._

Otabek stared down at their hands for a moment—then, he looked up with a jerk, suddenly remembering where they were. The hotel was a five-minute walk from where they were, and his impatience was as palpable as her own: there was no love lost between him and the press, and that was on a typical day. “Let’s go.” When they’d left the stadium behind he relaxed, slowed his pace and squeezed lightly at her hand. Elation pulled at the corners of her mouth: she still hardly dared to believe it was real, not some vivid hallucination her besotted heart was feeding her. The entire day felt a little bit like a dream.

 _Please, let this be real,_ she thought, and squeezed his fingers in return.

He let go when they entered the hotel, which proved to have several people they knew in the lobby, skaters and coaches alike. A few of them came to offer greetings and congratulations, all which Otabek acknowledged with grace. At this point, most people were used to his limited social presence, and they let him go quickly. They made it to the elevator at last; Esther sighed as the doors began to close.

The moment they were alone, Otabek’s hand was on her side; he turned to her, fenced her in against the rail, slid a cool palm against her neck and tilted her up into a kiss that had her trembling. She wanted to feel embarrassed about the plaintive sound that escaped her, but the slow, soft press of his mouth on hers was wreaking havoc on her higher brain function. Otabek looked like he kissed rough; like he’d press into her space and _take_ , with grasping hands and harsh bites. Maybe he _did_ , maybe he _could_ , but now, with her, he was gentle; thumb rubbing a slow circle into the dip of her waist as he traced the shell of her ear and kissed her over, and over—against each of her lips, dropping little pecks at the corners of her mouth—

The cheery _ding_ of the elevator made them both jump. There was no one there when the doors slid open, but her heart was still pounding with the prospect of being discovered, for once, _she_ would be the one found kissing a boy…

Incredulous laughter bubbled up from her chest, shimmering and effervescent. “Come on.” She grabbed his hand and led him down the hall to her room, fumbling to retrieve her key before anyone could see them, half-hoping someone did. They tumbled inside and pushed the door shut behind them, and Otabek was right back on her, crowding her against the wall, holding her still with big hands that trailed between her waist and her hips. He started off kissing her closed-mouthed, again, but when she reached up and ran her fingers through the short, coarse hair on the sides of his head, he sucked in a quiet, startled gasp—his tongue teased at her lower lip, but it was the hot, desperate entreaty of his breath, shivering out of him and onto her skin, that had her opening for him.

The first thing Esther noticed was that he didn’t taste like cheap beer and cigarettes. Nor did he taste of danger, or cinnamon, or any of those exciting, masculine flavors that all the stories promised; he just tasted like…mouth. It was, however, a drastic improvement over what she had known before, if only because it was _him_ —Beka sliding his tongue against hers, making a deep noise in his throat, biting softly at her bottom lip. Esther gasped, an electric shiver running up her spine, a deep, aching throb pulsing between her thighs. Her hands dropped to his shoulders, suddenly too weak to stay up, and gripped there as he nosed under her jaw, kissing where her pulse was leaping in her throat. He squeezed at her hips, and suddenly, she was aware of him where he was pressing against her, of the sudden tightening in her throat.

“Beka,” she forced herself to say. “I…”

She couldn’t make the words come, couldn’t even articulate what was _wrong_ —frustrated tears sprung into her eyes, but the uncertainty in her voice was enough for Otabek to take a step back, look at her with worry. “Are you all right?”

Esther didn’t want him to look at her like that. She’d much preferred it when he was looking at her like an object of desire, but something was stopping her; that same, nameless fear that dogged her every step and kept her life from being entirely hers.

“I’m fine,” she said, quickly, stepping away from him nonetheless. She sat down on the edge of the bed, hands wrapped around her arms, fighting back the tears. _Fuck. I just want to be normal, just for once, can I have this?_

He remained by the door. “Do you want me to go?”

Quickly, vehemently, she shook her head. “No.”

A painful, awkward silence ensued. Esther buried her face in her hands and hunched in on herself. _I fucked up. I fucked it all up._

The sounds of his footsteps, muffled by the carpet, came closer. “Is it okay if I sit with you?”

Without looking up, she nodded. The bed dipped beside her; after another moment, his arm wrapped lightly around her shoulders. “Is this okay?”

She stayed still, gauged the weight of his hand on her shoulder, and nodded again. Slowly, Esther raised her eyes, took a deep breath and rubbed at the wet trails on her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. It was gentle enough that it could have been a question: _do you want to talk about it?_ But it wasn’t, really—more like _if we’re going to do this, we have to talk about it._

  _I guess not needing words doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still use them._ Esther took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I just…” she worried her lip. “I’ve been waiting ever since I got here for you to make a move. Only…you never did, and I thought I was getting signals, but I wasn’t sure…”

“You kissed me,” Otabek said.

“Yeah, I did. And then you kissed me.”

“I can do it again, if you want to be sure.”

It took a moment—a startled chuckle bubbled out of her, and she knocked her shoulder against his. “No!” she colored, slightly, looking down at her knees. “I mean…maybe. Later.” She kept her eyes fixed on her hands, afraid that she would turn to him and stare at the irresistible fullness of his bottom lip, and now that she knew what it felt like…

“I had assumed my feelings were clear,” he said, breaking her reverie. “I wanted to give you space to respond to them.”

“Assumed your…” Esther blinked. “I mean. Maybe they were. They…probably were. I just, I thought you were oblivious, or…you didn’t really want to…”

The slight pause before his reply, the faint note of hurt in his voice, brought a painful twinge in her chest. “Why would I do that?”

“You wouldn’t. I know that. That’s not who you are, I _know_ , I just…” she hesitated, wondered _am I really about to lay it all out,_ but he already had her heart in her hands, was it really so much to know her mind as well? “I don't know what I’m doing here. I’ve never…I’ve never done this before, and I’m…I’m just stupid, and insecure, and it’s making me doubt you when I shouldn’t.” She turned to him now, plaintive, _please, understand me, I don’t want to be this way._ “I _know_ you, Beka. I _should’ve_ known, but I was too scared to trust what you were telling me.”

She watched the look in his eyes, those ember-spark eyes, fade to something soft, accepting. He lifted a finger to her cheek, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “If it helps, I can tell you. Point-blank.”

“Beka…”

“I’ve loved you,” he said, still tracing the outline of her face, “Since I was fifteen.”

Her breath caught. She thought back, relived that entire year in Boston in an instant with that revelation held close to her chest. “What…really?” All those nights they’d snuck out, the long airplane rides, breaks in practices—he’d known his heart before she did, long before, and had carried it with him all along. All of the moments in the last few months, where she’d been caught in an unguarded moment, strangled by paralyzing dread; that he wouldn’t feel the same, and that would be the end of the world. All the time she’d spent, fearing that she would go her whole life without ever being loved, he’d been there.

He nodded, smiling softly down on her, and she wondered how she had never seen it in his eyes—maybe she had, and she had never dared to believe it until now. “Mm-hm.”

And then he was leaning down, slow enough to give her time to turn away from him, if she wanted—but she didn’t; let him kiss her soft and sweet, and maybe even a little uncertain, the way it might’ve been if they’d been each other’s very first. It felt, in a way, like they still were. Her heart fluttered like an anxious rabbit’s, shortened her breath and left her feeling slightly dizzy. It was too good to be true—she would wake up in a moment with her throat clenching tight around the beginnings of tears, the way it always did when she dreamed about him.

He pulled back slow, eyes closed, like he was afraid of the same thing. He let his forehead rest against hers. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he murmured.

She wasn’t sure what motivated her—all she knew was that she wasn’t willing to be any less close to him than she had to be—so she climbed into his lap, leaned against his shoulder and let him encircle her in warm, strong arms.

Neither spoke: the silence prevailed for a long time, while Esther listened to his heartbeat and tried to convince herself that she believed him. _He’s never lied to you before. There’s no reason to think he doesn’t mean it._

Otabek broke the silence, jaw flexing where it rested atop her head. “You don’t have to say it back. If you don’t feel that way. It’s okay.”

“What?” she sat up and nearly headbutted him in the nose. “No. Beka. I’ve never felt this way before. Not about anyone else. I…it’s like losing myself, in you, and it’s terrifying but I _want_ it.” She pressed herself further into him, as if she could make him the entire world. “I want to stay close to you. I don’t ever want to let you go again.” Her breath hitched, her next words nearly aborted, but she forced them through, even if in a whisper. “I’m afraid of losing you.”

Somehow, he pulled her even closer, held her tight. “You’re not going to lose me.” There was that trademark Altin surety. Maybe he could be certain enough for both of them.

Esther tucked her head under his again, drank in the faint scent of the sweat dried to his skin. “I love you,” she said, in a small voice, because if what she felt for him wasn’t love, what was? It came out in English, perhaps because she felt such sentiments were deserving of her mother tongue; perhaps because she thought in English, and God knows how much time she’d spent fantasizing about the day she could say that to someone.

His lips brushed her temple when he spoke his reply. “I love you.” The words were sealed with a kiss: “ _Я люблю тебя_. _Мен сені с_ _ү_ _йемін_.” Unbidden, her lips curved into a small smile, one which dawned with the realization that he’d say it to her as many times as it took her to believe it, and then some.

“I want to be with you,” she said, into the sanctuary they’d created. “I don’t care how far apart we live, or how many times in a year we get to see each other.” She lifted her head, the better to look him in the eye. “We’ll make it work.”

He reached down and took her hands. “I’m glad you feel that way. I don’t want to let you go either.”

 _Okay. Serious adult conversation time._ She scooted off his lap and settled across from him, took a deep, steadying breath. “I’ll be honest. I don’t really have much experience with this, just what goes on in my own head, so I’ll say what I’m thinking and then you can tell me if anything seems…not good. Okay?” Otabek nodded, gave her his full and silent attention. _Wow. Okay, that’s…_

“So…even if we’re long distance, I think…we’re exclusive. There’s nobody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s only casual, or…” she swallowed, shook her head. “We’re with each other. Even if we’re not really _with_ each other, all the time. You know.”

“I feel the same,” he replied, simply, still managing to make her heart race. She blinked, searched for her next condition, but found that she didn’t really have one.

“That’s…that’s it, really. I’m yours.”

He’d taken one of her hands again; she looked at the contrast of their skin, appreciated the warm reassurance of his fingers. She hadn’t realized how starved she was for the comfort of someone else’s touch; now that she’d started, she couldn’t get it out of her head.

“I have something.”

“Yeah?”

“I want to keep this between us,” he said. “For now. Not keep it a secret. I’m going to tell my family, and my friends, when I go home. I know it’ll get out eventually, but I want some time for us to figure things out without the world breathing down our necks.”

Slowly, Esther nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. I don’t really mind people knowing, but I understand where you’re coming from.” She looked, found him with a small smile. “So…I’ll wait for whenever you’re comfortable.”

“Thank you.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, like some kind of ridiculous storybook prince, looked at the clock on the nightstand and sighed.

“I should probably go.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Do you have to? You could stay here.”

He paused, seemed to give it thought, but he shook his head. “I don’t want to rush into this. Especially not in the middle of a competition. We’ll have time to talk about it more.” He gave her a wordless, eyebrows-raised look, and she swallowed her disappointment and nodded, disappointed and relieved all at once.

“Will I see you at all tomorrow?”

“You’ll see me on the ice,” she said. He gave her another look, but she shook her head at him. “Spend time with Yuri tomorrow. Like you said; we’ll have time.” The smile she gave him stung bittersweet. _Not nearly enough._ The acute understanding of their situation was beginning to dawn on her; _time_ was a few more days in Barcelona, a precious few hours here and there, not demanded by their careers. As much as giving up tomorrow hurt, she knew it was the right decision—she needed time to think, and he probably did too.

“Okay.” Otabek tipped her face up with a finger on her chin, left a kiss on her forehead before he rose from the mattress. “Sleep well.”

“You too.”

She stood to watch him start towards the door, put his hand on the knob, and turn thoughtfully back. He crossed the room in a few swift strides, wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. “I love you.” The words were spoken so softly, they were barely a whisper; filled with wonder, and only for her.

Esther buried her face in Otabek’s broad shoulder, close to tears. “I love _you_.”

He kissed her once more before he left, a soft press of lips much like the one that had begun it all, though this one dallied. “Goodnight,” he whispered, before he was gone at last, calling her something that she didn’t understand. The question was halfway up her throat when the door closed behind him, and she was left to ponder it on her own.

 

* * *

 

When her alarm went off the next morning, the first task was to decide if it had all been a dream. _I don’t_ feel _different._ She rolled over and swiped her phone—no messages, no good morning text with excessive heart emojis to mark the beginning of a new era.

_I have a boyfriend. Otabek Altin, my boyfriend. My boyfriend, Otabek Altin, the hero of Kazakhstan. My Beka._

There was no time to lay around—Emanuel would be knocking on her door within the hour, and it was a hair-washing day. Showering kept her hands busy and her mind blank, and it carried through the remainder of her morning routine. No sooner had she finished getting dressed that Emanuel’s customary knock came, signaling that it was time for breakfast.

“You look different today,” he observed, when they sat down.

“Do I?” _Shit, is it that obvious?_

Thankfully, he decided not to pursue it. “How are you feeling about the short program?”

She took a moment to assess it herself. “Confident,” she answered, honestly. “Excited. I kind of wish I could just do it now.”

“Really?” he gave her a curious look over the menu; surprised, but pleased. “Hm.”

Esther looked back down and pretended to be very interested in the types of omelets available. _I’m Otabek’s girlfriend. We’re dating._

She ordered it and sipped pensively at her tea while they waited. _We’ll have to have the sex talk eventually. I mean, we should, I know that, but who knows…_ She set down her water glass harder than she needed to and breathed through a brief spike in her pulse.

“Are you all right?” Emanuel looked curiously at her.

Esther nodded. “Yeah. Fine.” _Can I tell him? “I don’t want to rush this,” that’s what he said. He said he was telling his family, I can tell Emanuel, then. And his friends, too…does that mean I can tell Leo? Fuck, this is why people get their first relationships over with when they’re teenagers._ “So…Otabek and I talked last night.”

“Oh?” the veneer he put on for her was one of mild surprise, but Emanuel looked utterly unfazed.

“We…talked about our feelings. Uh…we’re dating now.” _Smooth._

“Uh-huh.” He picked up his espresso and took a small sip, staring into the middle distance like he was reliving some harrowing past experience. “How does it feel?”

 _I guess I’ve never really been able to be anything but honest with him_. “I thought this was where it was all supposed to wrap up with a nice little bow,” she admitted. “Once you say ‘I love you’, it’s happily ever after. Right?”

Emanuel chuckled. “Now, I know you’re far too intelligent to really believe that.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t stop me from fantasizing about it. Just like how I think it’ll fix everything, if I tell people about what’s going on with me.” She fiddled with the tablecloth. “It never does.”

“No. But it helps. At least, I hope it does.” He reached over the table and patted her hand. “You’re in Barcelona. You’re at the Grand Prix final. Could you have imagined this last year?”

Esther blinked; Jean-Jacques Leroy’s botched quad flashed behind her eyelids. “No.”

“I think, Esther, that once you have your heart set on something, there’s no stopping you.” Emanuel sat back in his chair. “Ah! I believe that’s our breakfast.”

An expected silence settled over them. A moment went by before she realized that she’d swallowed her first bite; now her fork was hovering over her plate while she stared at the wallpaper. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How did you know…” she leaned on her elbow and poked at her food. “That you didn’t want to have sex?”

Emanuel blinked, but to her immense relief, there were no questions of _why:_ he only shrugged. “It was fairly straightforward. I tried it; it wasn’t really for me. Others, from what I understand, have a stronger aversion. They know without even getting close to it.”

Esther poked at her omelet some more. “So…that was it? You tried it and it…didn’t feel good?”

“Well, physically speaking, it felt just fine,” he chuckled, slightly. “If you could divorce sensation from everything else. But…something in the equation of multiple bodies, and the act itself…it isn’t something I care to repeat.” He picked up his tea and blew lightly across the surface. “But I wanted to try it, at least once. Growing up, I felt like it was some sort of joke. Everyone was in on it, and I was the only one who didn’t get the punchline. It took me years to realize everyone was being serious when they said they actually wanted to do those things. I have no desire for it. I never have; I probably never will.”

Esther forced herself to take another bite.

“Now, I highly doubt you’re asking me this out of curiosity.”

She swallowed. “I…yeah.” Fingers rubbed, uneasily, where her hair stopped growing at the back of her neck. “Falling for Otabek made me realize how little I’ve thought about things. Relationships, I mean. It’s not like I _never_ thought about it, God knows I daydreamed about the day someone would love me, even if…I had serious doubts that it would ever happen. I’ve never fallen in love with a real person before him, and it’s…terrifying. I don’t _like_ everything about him, but that doesn’t make me want him any less.” In the course of her soliloquy, she’d set her fork down: now, she wrapped her hands around her teacup, lifted it to her lips to stall for her thoughts. “If I’m sure of anything, I’m sure of that.” _Which still isn’t that sure, but it’s something._ “But…for as little that I’ve thought about falling in love, I’ve thought even less about…sex.”

The way his eyes scanned over her, Esther was left with the impression that Emanuel was sizing her up; maybe he was only waiting for an answer.

He cleared his throat and spoke. “How often is ‘even less’?”

She shifted in her seat. “I don’t know. It’s…complicated. I still get…uh. I have a…libido.” Her wince was barely suppressed, _ugh._ “There’s no problem there. Not that _not_ having one is a problem, but…” he prompted her on with a nod. “When there’s other people in the equation, it gets…different. I’m not even sure what it is, I just get…nervous. I don’t even like to think about it, most of the time.”

Emanuel cast a thoughtful gaze at the tablecloth, took a slow sip of his tea. “Have you ever…?”

“Yes.” When she covered her cheeks with her palms, she could feel the blood rushing just beneath her skin. “Once. I didn’t even know him. It wasn’t very good. I never saw him again. I haven’t been with anyone since.”

“All right. What didn’t you like about it?”

“I guess…it was fine during. You know what they say, even bad sex is still kind of okay. I was into it. The…physicality. It was…after, where it all went wrong. So to speak. I just…didn’t feel right. He was so casual about it. That’s what it was _supposed_ to be. But…I was just lying there, I felt…exposed. I left right after that. I went home, took a shower, and sort of tried to put the whole thing behind me.” The teacup’s handle was smooth under her fingertips, save for where she traced the ridges. “I thought I could be an adult about it. Have a bit of fun, no strings attached. Anything to distract me from how the color had gone out of the world. But I guess I just can’t separate my feelings.”

The conclusion came to him swiftly—she saw the moment it hit him, but he waited a moment, took a bite of his breakfast before he brought it up. “And what about the Altin boy? You have feelings for him.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think about him in that way?”

Her cheeks burned, again. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” She sighed. “Looking at him is one thing. I’m afraid that I’m going to jump into bed with him, and at the end, I’m still going to feel like a cornered animal. I’m afraid that I don’t want him at all, and that it’s going to be the thing that breaks us.”

Emanuel shook his head. “If it is, he doesn’t deserve even your boot heel.”

“It’s not like that!” She huffed; a brief, irritated thing. “He’s not… Some people just want to have sex with their partner, you know. Have a normal relationship.” The surface of her tea shimmered faintly; she blinked against sudden tears. “I just wanted to be normal.”

“Talking with your partner _is_ normal. Communication is normal. Don’t let other people’s foolish notions dissuade you from that.” Emanuel gave her a serious look, leaned down to catch her eyes. “Your relationship won’t be anyone else’s. The only people who can figure out what it’s going to be are you and him. I know that it’s frightening. New things always are. But you have time. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

Esther nodded. “I know.” _I do, even if everything in me says otherwise._

* * *

 

As Emanuel signed on the bill, Esther looked out the window, at the bustling street just on the other side of the glass. “I think I’m going to go out.”

“Are you meeting someone?”

She shook her head. “No. I just want to explore a bit.” She turned back, quiet with her own realizations—her mind was swimming, and she needed time away to process it all. A walk always helped. “It’s been a while since I went out by myself.” He looked at her, curiously, but there was a small smile he was fighting at the corners of his mouth.

“All right. You know what you need to do. I’ll see you later.”

Esther exited the café, put her hands into her jacket pockets and turned to glance down both ends of the street. She chose the right, and began down the pavement, only half-wondering where the road would lead her.

 _For a man that doesn’t do relationships, Emanuel gives pretty good advice about them._ She stopped and watched a three-man group of buskers; two were on fiddles, the other on guitar. Heeding her Faneuil Hall rule, she tossed two coins—one for making her stop, another for their dedication in the finger-biting cold—into the open violin case set before them and continued on her way. _But I guess that’s right. Nothing about Otabek and I is going to be exactly the same as anything else. There really isn’t a manual._

Oddly enough, there was something reassuring about that. Sure, they were in uncharted territory, but it also meant there was no formula to fuck up. Not that there were _no_ ways to fuck up.

Esther came to an abrupt stop, as her nose comprehended the salt in the air. Disbelieving, she watched the sun sparkling over the water, and smiled. _Somehow I always find my way here._

The road here was fairly sparse; most preferred to avoid the cold wind off the sea. Esther tracked closer to the railing at the edge, tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, a brief half-smile escaping at the memory of Otabek doing the same. She turned to her left, took in a surreptitious glance at the other person there—then, she blinked, briefly stunned as she realized who it was.

“Hello,” she said, the sluggish lapping of the surf against the seawall making her forget her anxiety.

“Oh.” Yuuri Katsuki looked just as surprised to see her, though it seemed he was similarly entranced. “Hello.”

“I didn’t think I would see anybody here. I came out this way to be alone.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“I don’t mind, though.” She leaned on the railing. “When things happen by chance, without you trying to make them happen…I feel like it has to mean something.”

He was silent for a long time. “I know what you mean,” he confessed, quietly.

For a while, they looked across the water and said nothing. Esther squinted and imagined she could see Sardinia on the horizon.

“I saw your short program yesterday,” she said. “It was good.”

“Thank you.”

“You didn’t think so, though.”

He looked at her, all wide brown eyes beneath black hair that was just starting to enter the shaggy stage of growing out. Her hair always got long when things were changing; when her mind was too busy to be occupied by something so petty—thoughtfully, she pulled at the end of one of her curls, stretched it straight until it skimmed an inch below her collarbone. _Huh._

“I know that look,” she continued, watching the water, because it was easier, looking away. “Because I _feel_ it. Everyone tells you you’re incredible, but you’re never satisfied. You’ve come by this idea of perfection, but you’re not sure you’ll ever reach it, and you’re afraid that if you do, you won’t ever get there again, and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life failing to measure up. You’re not sure which would be worse.”

Another wordless pause echoed between them, bridged by the breaking of the waves. “I’d thought about retiring,” he confessed, “after this.” That got her to look at him, shocked. _He’s on his way up, it looked to me like he’d found the winning combination, there was nothing left to do but be on top—_ “I felt…like I was keeping Viktor from the competitive world. Like I didn’t have much left in me. I wanted to win. To prove I could…to me, or to everyone else. I don’t know.”

“And…then you would just walk away.”

He nodded, still facing the water, though she found she couldn’t begrudge him for it.

“You…said you _thought_. Does that mean…you changed your mind?” she tried to keep the hopeful tilt out of her voice, did her very best to sound neutral, perhaps mildly interested.

A small smile came over him. “Viktor and I talked about it last night. It’s probably something we should have done sooner, to be honest.” A small, delighted, incredulous laugh escaped him as he looked at his hands, looked at the gold band resting on his finger. “We’ve just been so busy, both of us, with this; and trying to have the perfect, whirlwind romance of our dreams…both of us having different ideas about what that means, of course.”

“It didn’t work out the way you thought it would,” she guessed.

He shook his head, still smiling. “No. But…somehow, it’s still perfect.” Silence, then another small chuckle, this one more sheepish. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I promise, I don’t make a habit of pouring myself out to people that I’ve only just met. It’s…unlike me, really.”

Esther turned to the ocean. “Me too.” She smiled. “But, when I think of the person I was only a few months ago…I don’t think I’d recognize myself now.” A beat. “It’s good, though. I think I’m better.” Another beat. “I know I am.”

Yuuri turned to her, both bulky and small in his oversized camel coat, nothing like the veritable Nephil on the ice. “In Moscow,” he began.

“Oh, God,” she squeezed her eyes shut, covered half her face through an embarrassed laugh.

“No, no,” he said, quickly. “When you said…that I inspired you. What did you…?”

“It was your video,” she answered, and didn’t miss the spark of surprise behind his glasses. “I’d _never_ seen anyone skate like that, so full of feeling and…so _open_. I couldn’t even imagine putting that much on display, it seemed… _terrifying_ , but…I guess honesty always is. There was something about seeing someone who’d been at their worst come back from it. Like they found something there that made everything…worth it.” She had to make time for a slow, deep breath, to slow the revelatory racing of her own heart. “Suddenly, I could believe that it hadn’t all been a waste. Like everything I’d been through until now meant something. I guess…I saw a lot of myself in you. Or, I wanted to, at least.”

She was sure she had questions for him, but they all fled her now, left her to await his answer in the chill of the late morning, with the water rising slowly towards high tide.

“Your short program is tonight,” he spoke, “isn’t it?”

Esther nodded, curiously devoid of the spike in her pulse that the statement would typically have produced. He didn’t say anything more, but her thoughts were beginning to clamor for her feet to move again, and so she asked him: “What you said, last night…did you mean it?”

He looked at her, smiled, held out his hand to her. “Every word.”

 

* * *

 

Emanuel made her take a hot bath when she got back. “I won’t have you catch cold,” he said, as he sent her off to her bathroom, but the water did feel nice, and it had been a long time since someone had cared that much.

Her hair (which had been put up to avoid the water) was carefully pinned and braided into place, made to stay with a blessedly light application of spray. Emanuel attended carefully to her makeup, though he left the lipstick off, as always, for the very end. “All right.” He looked on her with pride, took her garment bag from the closet and turned to the door. “Let’s go.”

He said nothing to her on the way there; conscious, perhaps, of how silent she was. There was an energy about him, one that made him seem like his skin was nearly buzzing. He led her into the lobby, left her with one hand on her shoulder to go speak to one of the other coaches nearby.

Ina Lund was conducting an interview a few paces away, but the others were gathered around in pockets, speaking to coaches, or to each other. Sofia Borisova noticed her first, and took what looked like a half-step in her direction, before Nava caught sight of her. “Esther, there you are! I haven’t seen you since you got here! I heard your flight was delayed.”

“Yeah, I ended up having to take the train in. How was Sapporo?”

“It was awesome! Enough to make me wish I got NHK _every_ year.”

“I hear you. Japan is lovely. Hey.” Mila and Sara had come up, arm in arm, to join them. “How’s Barcelona been for you guys?”

“It’s been great, the clubs are _amazing_!” Sara piped. Esther peered between their heads at Sofia, still hanging back and scrolling through her phone.

“Excuse me a minute.” She crossed the carpeted floor, until she was standing before her fellow competitor. “Hi. I don’t think we’ve had the chance to meet yet.”

Sofia looked widely at her, before her eyes started darting to her sides. “I know who you are.”

“Yeah. I just thought it might be nice to shake hands and do it properly. Pretend we don’t live in a sphere where we know obscure details about people we’ve never spoken to.” She offered her hand. “Esther Markowitz.”

Slowly, she shook. “Sofia Borisova.” She still looked like she was plotting an escape route, so Esther offered her a smile and returned to the pack. The rest would be for her to decide.

When she came back, she found Ntombi and Aileen there; Christophe, Emil, and Michele were hovering nearby. “Esther, it’s so good to see you again!” Ntombi enveloped her in a tight hug. “I can’t wait to watch you.”

“Hey, Ntombi, good to see you too.” Esther patted her back and let her go. “Aileen.”

Aileen nodded, but she didn’t say anything; just stuck close to Ntombi’s side and cast her eyes over the current of palpable excitement running through them. Ina Lund’s interview finished, and she, too, eyed the pack before she made her way over. Esther saw her approach and took a small step back, one that alerted the others to part before her arrival.

“Esther,” Ina spoke, sounding far sweeter than she did on camera, “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you ever since we got here.”

Esther’s brow furrowed—she checked her phone, just to be sure, and slid it back into her pocket. “I haven’t heard from you.”

Something in Ina’s perfect smile twitched out of place—Sara and Mila’s eyes widened, Aileen coughed loudly, Nava looked around at the others. Esther’s frown deepened. “Uh…”

“I’ll see you on the ice,” she said, coldly, turned and stalked away.

Mila let out a slow, incredulous breath; Sara laughed and Aileen shook her head. “Holy _shit_.”

“What?”

“I don’t think Ina Lund has been rebuffed like that in a long time.” Sara turned and watched her go. “She’s used to being humored, I think. She probably has it out for you now.”

Esther scoffed. “Let her. I came here to skate, not to play high school again.”

The others made various sounds of agreement, and then began to disperse—their coaches were beginning to signal them; it was nearing time to get ready.

“Hey.” Aileen caught her as she started towards Emanuel. “I want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“In Moscow, I ended up thinking you were a bit stuck up. I was wrong.” She shrugged. “Good luck. I hope you give Lund a kick in the arse.”

Esther chuckled. “Thanks, Aileen.”

They parted ways; Esther went to meet Emanuel by the doors, and Aileen jogged to join Michele and Emil in the press of people heading to the stands.

Nava, the winner of two bronze medals, the most unlikely qualifier, and the only competitor that year not representing a European country, went on first. Her performance was everything that could be desired for an opener; she was energized, unpolished, full of promise. _She knows she’s not going to medal today._ Still, it was clear that she was here to do her country proud, and give the world a taste of what the future would bring.

“I’m proud to represent Israel here today,” Esther heard, in her first interview out of the kiss and cry. “And I hope that this will be the first of many Grand Prix finals to come—”

Sofia was second, and Esther was glad that her performance coincided with her suiting up: she’d been frighteningly good in Russia. Somehow, she found that she wasn’t really thinking much about that as she got into costume, as she tracked out to join Emanuel by the side.

Sofia’s score put her in first place. Emanuel’s hands were gentle as they tipped up her chin and applied her garnet lipstick. She showed off her teeth for inspection, he nodded. “Are you ready?” he asked, under his breath.

_Representing Luxembourg, Esther Markowitz._

It was all she could do to nod; no telling what might happen if she gave the electricity in her veins an avenue to escape. She scanned the stadium as she skated out, having half a mind to look for him, but it was fairly useless, she knew—he was there, somewhere, watching her now.

She settled into the center, took a deep breath, and waited for the music.

She felt it the moment before it hit; when it did, she was ready to join it. She _had_ been ready; the whole day had been a slow simmer up to this point. In some ways, it seemed like her whole life had been.

 _That’s life. I don’t know how you did it, Emanuel, but you looked at me and you saw my future. I wasn’t ready for it right away, and I’m sorry for that._ Her kickoff into the butterfly was perfect; the camel felt flawless. She came up again, lunged ahead into her triple axel. _You saw us going all the way to Barcelona, right from the beginning. Wishful thinking, a plan of action, they’re all the same to you._

She’d changed her combination, bumped it from a flip-loop to a Lutz-flip under his watchful eye, in the intervening weeks since Rostelecom. She’d wanted to meet him where he was, because if he could lift her to such heights on his own, what would they accomplish working together?

The spins came next—he’d drilled her until he’d beamed and pronounced her an honorary member of the Swiss Confederation. _I wonder if he knows what I’d do to make him smile like that. If he knows what I’d do for him._

The step sequence was straight out of the Yuuri Katsuki playbook—she’d studied his videos until she thought she understood where the expression in his footwork came from, practiced her own until there was feeling and memory imbibed in every minute turn: this slide of her blade against the ice was that afternoon at the waterside in Marseilles, this kick of her toe was the first time Otabek had kissed her.

Esther stilled and dipped into her layback spin, and her mind was full of the night she’d spent dancing in Chicago, how willingly she’d let herself plunge back into Otabek’s waiting arms. If she could be that fearless in everything, there would be nothing in her way—and though it wouldn’t always feel like it did now, tonight she felt unstoppable.

The noise was already deafening as she sailed through her final triple axel. In a flash of inspiration, halfway through striking her finishing pose, she seized onto the brim of her hat, lifted it away and tossed it aside as she flung out her arm, stood with her eyes to the ice and listened to the roaring applause. She straightened up and raised both her arms, silently speaking her gratitude before she went to retrieve her hat, skate the customary loop and stop again to bow. There were things hitting the ice—bouquets, and, she realized, laughing, stuffed lions, some with fitting crowns. She picked one up on her way back, held it close before her as she came to the kiss and cry. Emanuel’s hug took her off her feet: he spun her around once, laughing, and set her down on the bench. “One moment; I’ll get your guards.”

He gave them to her as he sat back down, took her lion and looked it over with a chuckle as she bent to slide them on. “That was the best it’s ever been. I don’t need to tell you that, though. It was clear enough that you knew.” She straightened up; he passed the lion back and smiled. “I’m proud of you.” He pushed her hat back, kissed her forehead, and looked quickly up to the screen, along with her, breath stolen by the beginning of her score announcement.

_The short program score for Esther Markowitz is 77.43. She is currently in first place._

She couldn’t really hear anything, not over Emanuel seizing her and telling her she’d broken the top five. That wasn’t what she remembered. It was what he said afterwards that stayed with her— _I knew you could._


	12. The Firebird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around, everyone. Esther's story isn't done; I plan on continuing it, once canon moves along. Until then, you can always hit me up on my [tumblr](https://polytropospolymetis.tumblr.com/).

Sometime between the end of her performance and the beginning of Sara’s, Otabek found her. “Congratulations,” he said, with a brief pat to her shoulder. She was ready to tease him, before she remembered the cameras all around them.

“Thanks,” she replied, and let one of their private glances pass between them. Emanuel let them off with a tight smile, and an instruction to meet him later, that they might exit to the lobby and meet the press together.

“You know you just received the fifth-highest short program score in history,” Otabek told her, as they made their way to a pair of seats. Esther could only muster a disbelieving breath, nowhere near even beginning to think of how she would answer him. “How are you feeling?” his hand brushed over the small of her back as she went into the row ahead of him; it could have easily been taken as a friendly gesture.

“Like it hasn’t sunk in yet,” she said, dropping into her seat. Otabek settled in beside her, looked behind them, and stretched his arm over the back of her chair.

“I’m proud of you,” he said, next to her ear. “That was really incredible to watch.”

Esther did her best to breathe through the feeling of his breath on her cheek. “Thanks.” She turned to him. “How was hanging out with Yuri?”

“It was good.” _Representing Italy, Sara Crispino._ “I’ll tell you about it later.”

Sara started strong, but nearly halfway in, she botched her combo. Still, she managed a performance that put her in third place—she was knocked down by Mila, who easily took second immediately after her. _If I hadn’t gotten it right just now, she would be in first,_ Esther thought, dizzily.

Finally, it came time for Ina Lund to take center stage. Her moves were crisp and polished as they ever were, but there was something different about the way she moved tonight, something looser, and not in a good way. Her jumps had frenetic edges to them; more than once, Esther feared a fall. _She’s off._

It was nowhere near as dramatic a turn as Jean-Jacques Leroy, but by the end of the day, everything had been turned around.

As the rink began to empty, Esther stood and pressed her spare key into Otabek’s hand. “Meet me in my room.” She left him before he could respond, made her way to the exit where Emanuel waited for her.

_How does it feel to have made it onto the top ten?_

_Your performance is so different from what it has been over the past few weeks, how did you come across such a big change?_

_You lead the ladies’ singles going into the free skate, what are your thoughts?_

It felt like an eternity before she could escape, but the sharp chill of the night air brought her back to herself, cleared her swimming head. She took slow, deep breaths, trailed quietly behind Emanuel on their way back to the hotel.

The lobby held a few scattered well-wishers, including—

“Esther!” she turned at the sound of her name, had to blink several times before she remembered she was now on an acquaintance basis with Viktor Nikiforov. Yuuri was holding endearingly to his arm, like some kind of socialite. “We just came from the stadium, too,” he said.

“You were there?” she gaped.

Yuuri nodded, smiling—the look that passed between them said far more than what the casual observer might have seen. Viktor, however, looked nearly manic. “Did you choreograph that program?” he asked her, eyes gleaming.

She shook her head. “My coach did. He helped me do my free skate, too. I didn’t realize you two were watching.”

“He wanted to see his rinkmate,” Yuuri nudged him, looking almost amused.

“Well, _you_ didn’t tell me you have such talented friends!” Viktor retorted, taking the whole thing as an excuse to wrap an arm around his fiancé’s waist and press a noisy kiss to his cheek.

“We’ll definitely stay to watch tomorrow,” Yuuri told her, laughing. “ _Viktor_.”

“Yes, of course,” Viktor disengaged, the picture of perfect composure. “I can’t wait to see what you do next.” With that, the two left her, saying their goodbyes and turning towards the elevator.

Esther exhaled as steadily as she could manage. Emanuel’s hand alighted between her shoulders, delivered a few steadying pats. “If you want to avoid any other well-wishers, I would suggest getting up to your room now.”

She nodded, slowly. “Yeah. Good idea.”

He chuckled. “See you tomorrow.”

Esther said nothing, already focused on her next objective. _Go back to room. See Beka. Ask him about his day. Normal girlfriend stuff._ When she opened the door, he was stretched out on the bed, one arm propped up behind his head, scrolling through his phone. Once he saw her, he set it aside, sat up and looked like he might have risen to meet her, had she not crossed the floor to him first. Around his broad shoulders, she wrapped arms that trembled faintly from exhaustion. Sighing, she rested her weight against him, let her cheek fall against the crown of his head as he held her around the waist. His hair was wavier than it normally was, free of its crisp, gelled texture and a little damp. “You smell like almonds,” she murmured, letting her fingers rake a little through the ends.

“I showered before I came here.” His breath fanned across her neck, and she suppressed a shiver.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

“Don’t worry about it.” A light push at her sides had her standing up straight, looking down at him. It wasn’t long before she shivered. Leaving the cold rink for the colder night had quick-dried her sweat rather uncomfortably. Coming back inside had, initially, made her feel overheated, but now she was beginning to feel cold again.

“Do you mind if I take a shower too?”

“Course not.” He tilted his face up, and she dropped a brief peck on his lips before she left him.

The shower was brief, but she lingered under the spray, let the hot water run over her for a few minutes. The day was getting to her, thankfully, in a way that made it hard to overthink the situation. She’d get out of the shower, and then they’d talk about…whatever. In some ways, it would hardly be different from the days where they’d sat in silence for hours, speaking up occasionally when something struck their fancy. Now, she could just lie a little closer, lean over and steal kisses…

Esther turned off the water, wrapped herself in one of the fluffy towels on the rack, and dried herself as best she could before she donned the old, oversized shirt and sweat pants she’d brought in with her. She reemerged, watched Otabek put his phone down and smile at her as she joined him on the bedspread, tucked herself into the space beside him and leaned in for her first real kiss of the day. It was so warm, so secure and comfortably familiar, and she relaxed into it, inhaling, again, the trace smell of almonds that clung to his hair.

“Hey,” he murmured, when she could finally bear to let him go, nosing at her temple. “You smell like lavender.”

Esther smiled and laid her head against his shoulder, pressing as close as she dared. She wanted to share his warmth, to obey the piece of her soul that seemed to draw her to him, always, like it wanted to fuse with his. “Tell me about your day,” she said, quiet, as if they were in danger of being heard by someone else.

He didn’t start talking right away. “Yuri and I went shopping,” he said.

The image was too funny to her, for some reason—perhaps it was something about that little scrap of a teenager dragging her stoic boyfriend along, or the deeper knowledge that Beka had probably enjoyed it every bit as much as Yuri had.

“I never thought you’d make younger friends. That always seemed like something I did.”

“Yeah.” A long pause. “But Yuri’s like us. There’s a lot to him, hidden underneath. I could always tell. The moment I saw him, I knew I wanted to know him.”

“And now you do?”

Another silence. “Not yet. But I think he’s going to let me.”

“I don’t get the feeling that he’s open to just anyone.” Strangely, a smile touched her. “I don’t think he likes me that much.”

“He doesn’t know you.”

“No, but he knows I’ve known you for a lot longer, and that I’m a little attached to you. I’m a rival for your attention.”

Suddenly, he was shifting, and then he was on top of her, thighs flexing as they bore his weight. “He’ll just have to deal with it,” said Otabek, next to her ear, smirk audible as he kissed his way over her cheek, to her lips. She let him taste her tongue for a few moments, but the moment that he inhaled deeply through his nose was the one where she pushed lightly at his shoulders. He went easily upright, remained there and crossed his legs when she did the same. Esther looked down at her hands, working against each other as they were, in her lap, and steeled herself with a deep breath.

“Can we…talk about something?”

 

* * *

 

The free skate loomed, the next day, like the end of an era; as much as she told herself it wasn’t, Esther couldn’t help but look at it like a culmination, of sorts. No matter how it ended, things were going to be different. Things were going to change.

 _I wonder if we should’ve talked about it._ In all the years she’d known him, her conversations with Otabek never seemed to stray to the rink, unless there was something specific that one of them had in mind. _No, what happened last night was just as important._

He’d taken it, of course, exactly how she’d (rationally) anticipated: with a soft kiss to the cheek and gentle squeezes of her hands, promises that it didn’t matter to him if they never had sex, what was important was that they were together.

There’d been disquiet there, though, but they’d talked about that, too, because it was impossible to keep any secrets from each other.

“I have had a lot of partners in the past.” Esther looked down at her lap, at her restless hands, and tried to swallow the apprehension his words brought her. They hadn’t been said unkindly— _It’s a statement of fact. He’s not pressuring you, and he’s not trying to make you feel like a total child in comparison._ She almost asked him when the last one had been. _Do people ask each other that? Well…he is my boyfriend, I guess it’s not out of the question for me to know his sexual history. But is it right, when I don’t even know if we’ll—_ Esther chewed her lip.

“I’ve had one.”

“Was he special to you?” Otabek, apparently, was not so shy about such questions. _I guess I should have expected that._

“No.” _I don’t have to say anything more than that._ “It was the summer before my last year of school. I always felt like such a child, when everyone else talked about what they’d done. I just…wanted to be able to say that I’d done it. It didn’t matter to me, who it was with. So I let Suzanne take me to a college party. She left me alone; it wasn’t long before some guy offered me a drink. I barely touched it, I was so nervous. We went up to one of the rooms, and…” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely. Otabek looked like he always did; impassive, though Esther could read his unrest in the faint pressing of his lips, and knew it was only so because he could sense her discomfort. “It wasn’t very good. He kept shoving his tongue in my mouth, and he tasted like cigarettes and cheap beer. He didn’t last very long, either. I mean, it’s not like I was timing him, I just…he didn’t… _I_ didn’t. Um.”

That drew an outright frown. Esther found that she couldn’t look at him, rubbed at the back of her neck and stared at the collar of his shirt. “I left after that. He wanted me to stay, but I just…I had to leave. I haven’t been with anyone since then.”

“I can’t blame you. Clearly, he didn’t have any idea what he was doing.” The hint of professional disdain in his even tone made her smile. He was like an artist, scoffing at the clumsy work of someone who claimed to be a master. “It sounds like you might not have been emotionally ready, either. You felt pressured.”

“That’s the thing, though,” she blurted, cheeks hot with a shame that only heightened her frustration. “No one was pressuring me. It was a decision I made all on my own.”

“You don’t have to have someone pushing you right in the moment to be pressured,” he retorted, firmly, and Esther fell silent, mind racing with the possibility of his words. He reached for her hands and took them in his own, thumbs tracing back and forth over her knuckles. “I meant what I said. We don’t have to have sex right away. Not until you’re ready for it. And if the answer ends up being ‘never’, then that’s okay too. It _is_ different from how I’ve done things in the past, but that doesn’t matter to me. We’re going to figure this out together. Okay?”

Esther’s lip wobbled, and she clambered into his lap to wrap her arms around his neck. “I don’t deserve you,” she sniffled, holding on like he was liable to disappear.

He’d simply gathered her in his arms, held her close and murmured, “I’m the one that doesn’t deserve you.”

They’d fallen asleep together some time after that. Esther had never slept as soundly as she had in his arms—she’d drifted off with his heartbeat in her ear and the scent of him all around her, and hadn’t stirred until the early hours of the morning, when he’d slipped carefully from the bed and tucked the covers around her, before he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Sleep well,” he’d whispered, calling her the name that she still didn’t understand. She didn’t have much time to think about it, at any rate; she was out again before the door closed behind him.

Emanuel woke her up a few hours later, at their usual time. “Today’s the day,” he said, with a sort of hushed, disbelieving excitement. _We’re really here, aren’t we,_ she thought, distantly, briefly overwhelmed by the sense of how far she’d come, how everything before him seemed to her now like a distant dream. _Does he know, how much he changed everything? It wasn’t a life I was living, before I met him._

She passed the hours in a sort of trance, texting the friends who weren’t there and thinking. It seemed like moments before it was time to get ready, time to sit in front of the mirror while Emanuel braided her hair back and painted fire and smoke around her eyes. _I am a firebird, a phoenix. I die, I’m born again._

“There you are.” Emanuel stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, teeming with unspoken pride.

_It’s time to show them my rebirth._

They walked to the stadium in silence. Esther floated through the doors, let Emanuel guide her to their seats—perhaps it was something in the look on her face that kept people from speaking to her, perhaps it was Emanuel. As Nava began the performances, Esther watched with unseeing eyes.

_You’re the reason I started skating._

_How could someone_ not _be inspired by you?”_

_I can’t wait to see what you do next._

_I want to do it like you do. You look like you’re flying._

_If you keep working like that, I believe you could be the best skater in the world someday._

When Mila was going on, Emanuel touched her shoulder. Efficiently, Esther rose and made her way to the locker room. She emerged just as it was over, stood still and let Emanuel apply her lipstick. The tie he was wearing today matched almost perfectly. Mila received her score; she led the pack. Esther eyed it up on the screen—Emanuel wrapped his hands around her arms and squeezed, brought her eyes back around.

“Go out there and show them. You were born to do this.”

_Representing Luxembourg, Esther Markowitz._

The hiss of the ice under her blades was all she heard; it was in her very bones. She skated out to the middle and took her place, and though she assumed the pose of her subjugation, it was less painful, now, to recall it.

_They’ve seen me die. Now, let them know what comes next._

The horn came softly, like the kiss Otabek had brushed over her cheekbone just that morning. Like the first sign of spring, she rose, slow but fluid, both old and new, reliving revival as though it were both the first and thousandth time. Her first combination was the fluttering, false starts of newborn wings; the loop that followed was a short, first flight.

With a throat thick from exhilaration, she leapt and spun, jumped again, again, now two at once, the axel felt nearly like flying. The music crashed like thunder around her, drowning out the noise of her skates, the desperate, bated quiver of her breath, shivering through the beating in her chest. She was crossing the ice, more and less than human, a final, flying spin, and then she was coming forward, picking up speed, turning into it—

_Fly._

The takeoff was perfect. What was mere seconds, in truth, felt like an eternity above the ground; like if she was so inclined, she’d never have to come down.

She landed like a feather and skated into her last spin, ablaze. _Jay. Leo. Nava. Viktor. Yuuri. Beka. Emanuel._

With her arms aloft to a stadium on its feet, Esther came back to herself, gasping like a newborn, throat tight with unshed tears. She bowed low, skated the smallest loop she felt she could get away with, and came straight to Emanuel, waiting at the edge with open arms. There, they stood for long moments, only moving to the bench when she began to loosen her grip at last.

Emanuel said nothing to her there—he only held her hand, squeezing when the speakers started up. _The free program score for Esther Markowitz is 148.99. Her overall score is 226.42. She is in first place._

Then they were hugging again, holding fiercely to one another. “You did it,” he was saying, thickly, in her ear, “You did it.”

_This year I’m going to reach new heights, ones that I barely dared to dream of before. I’m proud to represent Luxembourg, and I’ll bring home gold from the Grand Prix final._

There was time before the men went on; thankfully, Esther didn’t have to work hard at all to convince Emanuel to let the interviews commence later. There was only one person she really wanted to see.

“Esther, that was incredible,” Otabek told her, as he hugged her tightly, “ _You_ were incredible.” Too soon, they were pulling apart, and Esther was left trying to remember not to look at him like she looked at the stars. Some things, by now, were almost too easy to read, and she found herself leaning over to catch his eyes, nearly touched his wrist before she remembered herself. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“Fine. Just…anticipation.”

 _You never let them see you sweat, though._ With a quick glance thrown over her shoulder, out of the alcove they’d sequestered themselves into, Esther took his hand. “Beka, whatever weird notions you have up there, about…proving you’re _worthy_ of me, or something. Forget about those. I love _you_.”

He blinked. “I know,” he sighed. “I just…”

“I know,” she repeated, squeezing his hand. “Go out there and give them your best. You always do. The rest is in their hands.”

Otabek didn’t win gold that day—it was Yuuri Katsuki, shattering the world record with his free skate and bringing Esther to tears. There wasn’t any other way to describe it, other than _perfect_. Yuri Plisetsky followed at second, helped by his massive lead in the short program. And just one step below _him_ , a fraction of a point behind, was Otabek Altin. If anyone in that stadium had thought they’d cheered louder than her, Esther would’ve liked to know who they were.

“You were brilliant,” she and Yuuri said to each other, at once, and then it was all a blur, straight into the medal ceremonies. Katsuki Yuuri stood on the top of the podium like a shining sun, teary-eyed and beaming. He kept looking back towards them at the sidelines, and Esther knew it was because Viktor was there, wearing the same look of overwhelmed elation. _So when’s the wedding?_ she might’ve asked, if she hadn’t felt so weak and shaky from the force of her own emotions. Yuri Plisetsky looked…humbled. As soon as the officials moved on from him, he picked up his silver medal and stared thoughtfully into its glinting surface, trying to find the answers in the etching. Eventually, though, he let it sit against his chest, scanned the crowd, and looked across to Otabek, receiving his own medal.

On the podium, Otabek Altin was about as effusive as he was in every other aspect of his life. Esther, who would’ve known him in a crowd of thousands, could tell that he was satisfied. He’d done the best that he could, and it had put him on the podium, just barely behind the silver medalist. He wouldn’t be content with a perpetual third place, but it was hardly a bad result. They stood respectfully still for _Kimigayo_ , before they left the podium behind for their victory lap, stopping at the edge of the rink to wrap friendly arms around shoulders and pose for pictures. They took a few with Yuuri, dazzling, in the center; those would be the ones flanking the headlines. Eventually, though, Yuri scooted his way into the middle, sharing a few conspiratorial words with Otabek. Esther watched the corner of his mouth tick, before he leaned in to reply. Yuri grinned at him, and the cameras shuttered on. Otabek’s gaze drifted somewhere past them, until he found her standing just behind them. His smile softened at the edges, became a little more genuine, and Esther could do nothing but return the look. If she’d had anything left in her, she might’ve cried again, but all of her tears had already been spent; minutes before, when she, herself, had climbed to the top step, with Mila Babicheva on her right and Sara Crispino on her left, and bent her head to receive her gold medal. The first notes of _Ons Heemecht_ filled the rink, and Esther covered her mouth as the tears ran freely down her cheeks.

 

* * *

 

“Your performance was incredible. I think the whole country must have been watching. And you made us very proud; not only the first Luxembourgish figure skater to win a gold medal at the Grand Prix final, but also the first senior ladies’ skater to land a successful quadruple jump in competition. Your scores, too, are all among the top ten in their categories. I think, Ms. Markowitz, that you’ve impressed the world.”

“Thank you,” Esther dipped her head, smiled, and tried to remember to look at the hosts, and not the multitude of cameras trained on them. _TV is harder than it looks._ “It’s only thanks to the support of many incredible people that I’ve been able to do this; my friends, and especially my coach, Emanuel Adélard. I would never have made it this far without him.”

“Well, we are all grateful to him as well.”

“Yes, certainly. We understand you had a hand in choreographing your routines. Yuri Plisetsky was the senior men’s silver medalist this year—the change in his exhibition program caused a bit of a stir in Barcelona, not least when he credited the choreography to you.”

Esther hoped she didn’t look like a deer in the headlights. She’d figured there would be a possibility of the question coming up, had even spent time thinking about what she’d say. If it had been solely up to her, she would’ve told them the truth— _yeah, well, it’s actually a funny story; my boyfriend went out to meet an acquaintance of his at the club, and Yuri followed him out because he was pissed that Beka wouldn’t take him—he’s underage, you know—I stayed home, because I don’t like clubs. And he told Beka he didn’t want to skate his exhibition, so Beka called me, and we stayed up all night putting it together…_ But Yuri Plisetsky had looked straight at her when the reporters had asked him about the new routine, a hard glint in his eyes as he attributed it all to her. She’d wondered, at the time, if it had anything to do with what she’d told him, the moment Otabek had left them alone for a few moments. “I don’t know what you’ve got going through your head, but I’m not out to keep him from you. You know that, right? He likes you a lot. We don’t have to be best friends, but I’d like for us to both be in his life.” Now, she had a feeling it had more to do with feeling like he owed her. The way he’d looked at her, green eyes flashing, had said something like _we’re even._

“It was a favor for a friend,” she said, smoothly. _Your move, Plisetsky._

After that, they (mercifully) changed topics, started asking her about her meeting with the grand duke and his family, and with the prime minister and his husband. Esther didn’t stick around after her interview segment was over—she departed, gratefully, for home, watching out the window as the bus ambled along the streets, stooping to scratch Suie’s ears as she came through the door. “Emanuel?” she straightened, tracking further inside. There was no answer. _He must be out._ She stopped at the wall, where her Grand Prix gold hung beside the bronze from Junior Worlds. Looking at it, glinting in its case, she suddenly knew exactly where she wanted to be.

 

* * *

 

She’d been at the rink for maybe an hour when Emanuel walked in. “There you are,” he called, alerting her to his presence. “You weren’t there when I got back.”

“Same here,” she skated to the edge of the ice, leaning on the wall. “I figured you were out shopping.”

“No—I had that meeting with the Union.”

“Oh, right. Anything interesting?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, no.” He leaned around her, nodded at the ice. “What was that you were doing just now? It wasn’t any of your routines.”

She shrugged. “Just experimenting.”

“Already thinking of next season?” he chuckled at the sheepish look she gave him. “You know, I should’ve known you would try getting back into it early. You still have another day off.”

“I know. But…” _I’ve never really been content with standing still._

“Speaking of next season,” Emanuel sobered. “I’ve been getting requests to teach new students. It’s a little overwhelming, to tell the truth—I’ve never been in a position to be this selective.”

Esther waited for more, but he seemed to have fallen into contemplation. “That’s good,” she said. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

“I wanted to ask you first,” he told her, and though he said no more, she understood.

“You know,” she began, thoughtful, “I won’t be skating forever.”

“You have another seven years, at least, and there are plenty of skaters who prefer to have the undivided attention of their coaches. I’m leaving it to you.”

Esther chewed her lip, drummed her fingers on the rink’s edge. “What do you want to do?”

Emanuel’s eyes flickered down to his hands. “I think…that I’d like to take on more students.”

She thought of having rinkmates and smiled. “Then you should do that.”

He nodded. Then, he cleared his throat, straightening up. “Well. If you want to start again tomorrow, we can. We have the national championships coming soon, after all. Europeans won’t be long after that, and I’m sure you agree you should make an appearance at the Coupe de Printemps, seeing as it is in your home country. Before you know it, it’ll be time for Worlds.”

“Sounds like we’d better get to work,” Esther copied him, checking the time on her phone. In just a few hours, Beka would be done for the day, and they’d tell each other all about it. But until then…

She left her phone on the wall and skated out onto the ice, closing her eyes as she drifted through the cold, turned and pulled it off—a perfect quadruple salchow. She turned and found Emanuel lingering at the door. He smiled, turned around, and left her to it.

 

**_See you next level!_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ina's short program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXjn6srhAlY)   
>  [ina's free skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot4ulSeYcHU)


End file.
